


You Made Me a Believer

by Kat_o_nine_Tails



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emil Is Even Prettier, Emil is NOT a Kade Onni, F/M, Found Family, Ghost Horde, His head is just free real estate, Lalli Is Stupidly In Love, M/M, Magic, Oblivious Emil, Pagan Gods, Possession, Reynir Is a Good Bro, Slow Burn, Sorry Emil, Tuuri lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 49,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_o_nine_Tails/pseuds/Kat_o_nine_Tails
Summary: Emil did not believe in gods. For better or worse, the feeling isn’t mutual.In which the team assumes their last stand against the ghost horde, but Reynir doesn’t reach Onni in time. Emil is the first to fall.Someone catches him.
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström, Reynir Árnason & Lalli Hotakainen, Sigrun Eide/Mikkel Madsen
Comments: 117
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this happened when I woke up in the middle of the night after a very unsettling dream, got up and spent the rest of the night writing it down. When I had some coffee and came back to it I found 15,000 words of an absolute mess. This is... 'not up to my usual standard' is probably the best way to put it, but I did clean it up the best I could. It's done, start to finish, but it needs a lot of work to be even remotely readable. So I'm going to divide it into digestible chunks and post it as I clean it up. 
> 
> Also, I'm Sorry [character name] is a legit tag, and is very applicable here.

Emil, born and raised in the staunchly atheistic Sweden, did not believe in any gods. He did not believe in magic, or ghosts, or any other supernatural phenomena. His aunt Siv was a doctor, and when she and uncle Torbjorn were still engaged she won Emil over by explaining to him how the Aurora Borealis was made, the way sunlight collided with air and the resulting light danced with the flow of the solar wind. Emil, as a plump and wide-eyed four-year-old, lapped up every word.

She told him everything in the world could be explained with science, and that what may seem like magic at first glance is just natural phenomena that could be explained if studied thoroughly. Emil had listened to her with rapt attention that entire afternoon while Uncle Torbjörn and Siv’s parents talked. That day she had won his devotion and been welcomed into the family, and reshaped his worldview for years to come.

Fifteen years later, in the dark of the Silent World, that worldview shifted on its axis. 

At first, he didn’t believe even when he saw with his own eyes how Lalli’s eyes glowed, how Reynir’s runes burst into fire apropos of nothing. That Reynir and Lalli could see things others couldn’t, and when they issued warnings Sigrun, brave and fearless and ready for anything, listened and suddenly followed protocol. How even Mikkel, who was Danish and just as godless as Emil, suspended his disbelief in the face of overwhelming evidence. 

Emil had held out as long as he could, but when an invisible force made kitty lash out and Sigrun and Mikkel faint dead away, Reynir fall down to his knees to pray and Lalli scream like he was being murdered, it was the first chip in the wall of Emil’s belief.

Now, armed with nothing but a flamethrower and set upon by trolls and things he could not see, surrounded by the grim faces of his comrades, his  _ friends,  _ the last of Emil’s disbelief crumbled into ash.

It was all real, and it was more powerful than them.

_ We are going to die here,  _ he thought,  _ We are going to die and when we die we will become like  _ **them** .

There were ghosts coming, Lalli said through Tuuri. Ghosts that were chasing them because they were still alive and they had souls and the ghosts who could not move on could not stand for it.  _ Trying to chase the last shreds of memory of being alive,  _ Tuuri had told them, so afraid and helpless and galled at her helplessness.

She was in the tank now, along with Reynir. The two non-immune individuals among them, who were facing a fate far worse than death if their last stand failed. 

Emil had seen Mikkel hand Tuuri a small handgun.  _ Just in case,  _ he’d said. She’d grimly put it beneath Emil’s bed.

Something told Emil it wasn’t intended just for trolls.

“That’s all we can do to prepare,” Sigrun said grimly while Mikkel had dragged Reynir back to the tank, “It’s time we assume battle positions and ask the gods to let us see tomorrow.”

_ Would they even hear us all the way out here,  _ Emil didn’t ask. He wanted to. He would have liked it to be true.

The last sliver of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.

_ And the area around the tank burst into flames. _

“I… Did not set up explosives over there,” Emil said to Sigrun, distantly thinking of Reynir scribbling things in the dirt and of the rune that set itself on fire in his pocket.

“Start picking them off while they’re startled by the fire!” Sigrun ordered, and then there was no time to talk at all. The first beast that jumped out at Emil had gotten a mouthful of iron for its trouble. Then there were more of them, coming in every direction, and Emil could barely take cover behind Sigrun long enough to switch the clip in his gun. And then another, and another. When he ran out he threw it aside and jumped down from the tank, grabbing his flamethrower.

_ I do not have enough,  _ Emil thought as the trolls just kept coming. Out the corner of his eye he saw one with a long tail smack Sigrun to the side like she was a ragdoll.  _ Helvete, we are going to die here. Not like there is anyone around to judge me.  _

_ “Hail Odin,”  _ Emil breathed the words of prayer he’d heard from Sigrun, for the first time in his life, “ _ Hail Thor, Hail Tyr, Hail Freya, the great and powerful gods of battle and war and conquest. Grant us your glorious strength to prevail against our enemy, so we may see the sun of tomorrow.” _

With the last word of prayer he let the fire roar into the face of one troll. It screamed and scampered away, writhing, and then there were more and more of them. Emil was surrounded on all sides in no time and before he knew it he was on his back in the dirt, and two trolls were looming over him, holding him down. Emil held his breath but did not close his eyes, did not want to greet death with closed eyes.

They parted for something and Emil could see the vaguest impression of a shadow that looked like a horse before Sigrun was screaming his name and there was gunfire above him and  _ something was _

_ c o m i n g  _

_ s c r e a m i n g _

_ let͡ ͜͝u͜s̕ ̴i͢͜n̶͏͘ ̢͢͞le͡t̶͞ ̶͟u̸͠s̵̴ ̷̡i̧͟͠n le҉t us̡͜͠-̴͜ _

Emil couldn’t hold his breath forever. 

He

_ i n h a l e d _

_ And the world was burning. _

_ No it was not the world it was just his house his home and the fire was coming and it was beautiful and deadly and Emil was in love hate fear loneliness emptiness- _

_ There were arms around him, familiar arms holding him to a familiar bosom and Emil didn’t understand but he had never been so glad to see his Nanny again. _

_ She took his face in her hands, looked him in the eye and smiled. _

_ Were her eyes always that vivid shade of glowing pink? _

_ “Granted.” _


	2. Chapter 2

Sigrun had failed.

She had failed miserably.

The trolls kept coming and kept coming, and then they all turned on  _ Emil,  _ her little Viking, and he disappeared screaming beneath them. Sigrun had screamed his name and shot at the horde but they were endless and they buried him and Emil stopped screaming long before she did.

And then the world was on fire.

An eagle bigger than their tank and made entirely of fire swooped down and burned everything in its path. Sigrun watched in awe, at first thinking the gods had heard her, but no. Twigs was yelling his mage cousin’s name, and the moment they got back home Sigrun was going to hug him.

Actually, no, she wouldn’t. She was going to shake him for not getting here sooner. 

Emil was dead.

Sigrun watched the burning pile of trolls that had buried Emil, and wanted to scream some more. Sigrun had lost men before, yes. Troll hunting wasn’t exactly a profession in which you can expect to live to ripe old age. But this was different from losinger men. Emil wasn’t a man yet, he was a  _ boy.  _ A boy who was on his way to be a brave and proud Viking one day, and now that day would never come. 

Emil was  _ dead _ .

A heavy and broad hand fell down on her shoulder. She didn’t look back at Mikkel, knew that he was seeing the same thing she was.

“We’ll bury him tomorrow,” Mikkel promised, voice heavy, “But right, now we still have the rest of the team to worry about. One of the trolls broke into the tank. Tuuri said it left without harming either of them, but it’s always best to check.”

Training and responsibilities kicked back in and Sigrun followed Mikkel to the tank. Puffy and Braidy were peering out of the window, looking a bit shell shocked but otherwise unharmed. Twigs was standing guard at the entrance with a deeply suspicious look on his face. When he saw them coming he leaned to the side to look behind them, as if their missing member was hidden by Mikkel’s girth.

“Emil?” he inquired. Like he didn’t think for a second Emil might not have made it back.

Sigrun grit her teeth, swallowed and shook her head.

“No,” Tuuri whispered, hand over her mouth. Reynir looked like he was going to cry. 

Lalli stood frozen, not a single muscle in his face twitching. Then he shot past Mikkel and almost made it past Sigrun when she grabbed his hood with her uninjured arm.

“No,” she told him firmly, “It’s too dangerous out there. We can go back for him tomorrow, but right now we need to hunker down and wait this out. We will-”

She never got to finish. Lalli twisted in her grip and sank his teeth in her hand viciously. In the split second the pain distracted Sigrun, Lalli twisted out of his jacket and sprinted in the direction of the troll pile.

“Lalli, no!” Tuuri nearly jumped out the tank window. Mikkel stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, much like he did Sigrun.

“Let him go,” Mikkel advised her before she went after the feral scout, “He’s immune, and he’s not going to rest until he sees the body for himself.”

“But-”

“There is nothing we can do for Emil anymore, and he needs to understand that on his own,” Mikkel was firm, “Unlike you. Are you sure the troll didn’t injure either of you?”

Tuuri and Reynir look at each other. “No. It just… Broke in and started thrashing around the sleeping room. At one point it loomed over me and I thought it was going to bite, but then it just… Turned around. Went out the same way it came. I think Lalli scared it off, he came in a second later.”

“Guess it could sense he’s a mage,” was Sigrun’s guess. Trolls didn’t generally turn away from their prey like that unless there was either a tastier morsel around or it was outmatched. 

“A most likely explanation,” Mikkel agreed, “And the firebird? Was that Reynir or Lalli?”

“No, it was Onni,” Tuuri said, “Well, it was Kokko, one of our gods, but Onni summoned her. Reynir said he managed to contact him right before we were attacked.”

“I thought so,” Sigrun sighed and clenched her fists around the scout’s jacket, “Couldn’t he have done that literally a  _ second earlier?!” _

Tuuri flinched. Sigrun felt she should probably apologise for that, since this really wasn’t Puffy’s fault, but then her cousin started yelling from the top of his lungs and Sigrun was too busy grabbing her shotgun.

“What is it!?” she asked Tuuri.

“He’s saying-,” Tuuri looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “He’s saying Emil is still alive.”

Sigrun’s heart stopped at those words.

A second later, her body was moving on its own.

Twigs was struggling to push one of the bigger, completely scorched trolls off. Sigrun didn’t even bother to skid to a halt, just rammed her shoulder into one of the bony indents and pushed with all her strength until the corpse toppled off the pile. Then they dug and dug until the charcoal gave way to squishy black ooze, and the squishy black ooze gave way to cloth underneath.

Emil was covered head to toe in gunk so Sigrun couldn’t tell how many troll bites he was sporting, but he was immune and wasn’t missing any limbs. She decided to be cautiously optimistic. He wasn’t even burned anywhere. It seemed that, ironically, the trolls that attacked him protected him from the fire with their bodies. 

Lalli crouched down by his head and put a finger on Emil’s throat. Sigrun held her own breath while she waited for the verdict. Lalli looked up at her, eyes wide with hope and nodded.

Sigrun took a deep breath. “Mikkel!!!”

* * *

_ “An entire horde attacked you?”  _

_ “Yes. Tuuri said it was Onni who summoned one of your gods, a firebird, and destroyed them. I would assume that was the reason for his current condition.” _

_ “If it is, it’s a wonder he’s not worse! I don’t know much about magic but I did read the Kalevala! And I knew Ensi, his grandmother. If memory serves, a mage who isn't powerful enough to handle the strain would have died. But Siv says he’s stable, and he’s just going to be out for a long time. I think he doesn’t even know how lucky he was.” _

_ “Thank him for us when he wakes up, will you? Without him, we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation.” _

_ “And Emil?” _ A different voice came from the radio, still in Icelandic,  _ “Has he gotten any better?” _

_ “I’m afraid not,” _ Mikkel answered like it was a question the lady hadn’t asked for the third time in as many minutes.  _ “We are monitoring him closely, and so far he seems to be in a similar state to Onni: stable, but unresponsive.” _

Reynir stopped listening then. He moved away from the wall of books and went to sit next to Lalli at the foot of Emil’s cot. Emil himself was lying on the floor of the storage compartment, occupying the bedroll Lalli had laid on during his own convalescence, with Kitty curled up on his chest. 

He made for a strange picture. He’d always been fair, but now his skin looked like porcelain: perfectly smooth, bone white and utterly cold no matter how many blankets they piled on top of him. His hair, shiny once again after Mikkel thoroughly washed the troll blood off of it, had spilled around his head like a halo. Like one of those overdetailed ceramic dolls Reynir had seen in the museum of Old World artifacts. He laid still as death, the only sign of life being the way Kitty rose and fell with his breath. He was quiet, even his breathing making no noise.

But the room was far from silent.

There were  _ whispers. _

Reynir had heard the ghosts talk, the hoarse wails and echoing whispers. The closer he got to Emil, the more he heard those exact same whispers. Quieter, and without that painful edge of desperation that made his heart squeeze in his chest, but it was  _ them. _

He could  _ sense them.  _ All of them. 

They were in Emil’s  _ head _ .

Lalli must have figured it out as well. He hadn’t moved more than three steps away from Emil the entire time, and hardly blinked. Reynir knew they were friends, even though he was pretty sure they didn’t have a language in common. He could only imagine how worried Lalli was.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Tuuri poked her head through the doors, “Any changes?”

“No,” Reynir sighed, “How are the repairs coming along?”

“...slow,” Tuuri grimaced as she said it, “The troll went through the spot where half the cables are, and they’re not marked any different from one another. Plus our gas piping has been compromised, and-,” Tuuri sighed in frustration, “It’s going to take a while. More than one day, definitely. Are you sure those ghosts are gone?”

Reynir struggled to keep his face blank. “Yeah. They’re not following us anymore.”  _ They don’t need to. _

“Well, there’s that at least,” Tuuri nodded, resolute once more, “Well, I better get back-”

Lalli interrupted her with a rapid stream of Finnish. Tuuri frowned, said something back, but Lalli seemed insistent.

“He’s saying I should tell you to come find him when you go to sleep,” Tuuri translated, “But he won’t tell me why.”

Reynir knew why. He smiled reassuringly at Tuuri. “That’s okay, he probably wants to tell me himself. You can go. We’ll stand guard here in case the ghosts do come back.”

Tuuri nodded and went back to work. Reynir slumped down against the wall and looked out towards the endless horizon, the sun slowly but steadily creeping closer to it. They would have to close the doors soon, but neither he nor Lalli sensed anything in the vicinity, so not even Mikkel was too insistent.

Reynir sighed, and looked at Emil. He hadn’t moved since the last time he looked, so he looked at Lalli. It wasn’t very different than looking at Emil, except for the occasional blink.

“We really need to talk soon,” Reynir told him, despite knowing he wouldn’t be understood. Was this how Emil felt talking to Lalli all the time? “There’s this Pastor Lady, she’s a priestess of the Old World temple. She said she might be able to help with the ghosts if we can find her, but I don’t know where to even start looking. But you’re a scout, and an actual trained mage. Hopefully you’ll have better luck than me.”

Lalli didn’t move. Reynir didn’t mind. 

Instead, he decided to get a bit more proactive and put his mask on to fetch a bedroll for him and Lalli. He told Mikkel that they would be sleeping in the storage compartment, since the floor here was busted anyway. Mikkel and Tuuri nodded absently and went back to sorting cables. 

Reynir rolled out their cots on either side of Emil. That way they probably wouldn’t miss anything, if some kind of change did occur. The whispers, as they were now, were relatively easy to block out, but if they got louder either one of them or Kitty would notice. 

Reynir didn’t know what they would do if that happened, but they couldn’t just do  _ nothing. _

Lalli had moved the exact minimum amount Reynir needed to set his bed, and then went back to staring at Emil. Reynir wondered if he could see something Reynir himself couldn’t. 

Well. He’d get the chance to ask him soon enough. 

The sun went down, they closed the doors and set up the surveillance systems. Lalli and Reynir slept next to Emil, and Sigrun, Turri and Mikkel slept in their usual places, though now Mikkel took Emil’s former bunk. Reynir had just been settling in, though it was still a bit early to go to sleep, when strange things started happening.

At first, Kitty stood up at attention and bristled, whimpering. Lalli sat up and Reynir tensed, trying to figure out what was setting her off. Kitty made a sound he'd never heard from her before and shot off towards the door, scratching to be let out.

When she got away, Reynir realised she wasn't the one making those noises.

It was Emil.

“Emil?” Lalli poked him in the cheek, wide-eyed and hopeful, but Emil didn’t react. Soon those whimpers turned into groans, and Lalli’s pokes turned into forceful shaking, “Emil! Herätä!”

Emil’s brows scrunched together and his lips drew back over clenched teeth. Reynir noticed he had started to sweat and instinctively put a hand on his forehead.

This wasn’t just a nightmare. Emil was  _ burning up. _

“I’ll get Mikkel,” Reynir jumped up and went to the door just as Emil started screaming.

* * *

Tuuri was still poking at the wires in the tank, no matter how much Mikkel urged her to rest up a bit. She was close to getting everything working, she knew it! Sigrun was right, they could not afford to stay here long. The scent of burning troll flesh was keeping the grosslings away for time being, but eventually the smell would settle and the snow would cover the remains. They had to be far away from the open area before anything hungry decided to go looking for them. 

She was so, so close when the screaming started.

“What is it? Are we being attacked?” she barely had time to ask before Reynir was bursting into their compartment.

“Emil just started screaming!” Reynir yelled to Mikkel, “He has a fever and he looks like he’s in pain!” As if to punctuate his point, Emil screamed louder.

Mikkel, cool as a cucumber, quickly got up and marched out without even putting on his coat, Sigrun following close behind with her shotgun. Tuuri scrambled up after them, then backtracked to grab their uniform jackets. The last thing they needed was even more people falling ill, honestly, were the Finns really the only ones with any sense about these-

The sight that greeted her made her forget all about the cold.

Emil was on the floor, back bent into a painful-looking arch, screaming and writhing like he was being eaten alive, clutching his head in pain. Lalli was kneeling over him, looking as afraid as Tuuri had ever seen him. His hands were holding Emil’s to try and stop him from ripping his hair out. He looked like he was quietly singing a runo.

Mikkel didn’t shoo him away. He knelt on Reynir’s cot and put a hand on Emil’s forehead, then frowned thunderously. “Get me as many towels as you can find, and a basin with water. Mix it with some snow.”

“Is it that ba-”

“ _ Now.” _

Reynir jumped and started running, not wearing a coat either. Tuuri, frozen to the spot, didn’t think to give him one.

“Mikkel, can you shut him up?” Sigrun yelled over Emil, “He’s going to bring every troll in a ten klick radius to us, and we’re sitting ducks!”

“I’m aware of that Sigrun!” Mikkel yelled back, “But if we're going to do that we need to bring his fever down before it boils his brain!”

Reynir burst back in then, dumped the towels on Mikkel and barely stopped the basin from spilling water everywhere, then ran back out at the same breakneck speed. Mikkel didn’t even say a word, just put one of the wet towels on Emil’s head and directed Lalli’s hand on top of it. 

“Gods dammit, we’re going to be overrun again!” Sigrun cursed, then turned to Tuuri, “Puffy, you need to take your cousin’s place and get him to come out and help me! There’s no way we haven’t attracted some unwelcome company by now, and I need all available hands holding guns  _ now!” _

Tuuri, still holding their coats at the entrance, looked at Emil screaming and thrashing and Lalli desperately trying to keep him still, and Mikkel taking Emil’s clothes off to try and cool him off. If their expressions were anything to go by, they were going to fail and they knew it.

Perhaps it made her a horrible person, but Tuuri did not want to take a single step closer to them. 

She did not want to see Emil die in her arms.

Sigrun looked like she was going to start yelling again to get her moving, but then Reynir shouldered past them with an armful of show, which he unceremoniously dumped into the basin. 

“Mikkel!” Sigrun yelled, changing tactics, “Get Braidy to switch places with Twigs, I need him out here with a gun yesterday!”

Mikkel ignored her, too busy placing wet towels over Emil’s body. Reynir had already started helping him, handing over snow-packed towels and accepting lukewarm ones. In Tuuri’s semi-expert opinion, the snow was melting far, far too fast on Emil’s body. The temperature it would need to do that was- 

“Dammit people, you are all going to the mutiny list, I swear! Tuuri!!!” Sigrun grabbed her by the shoulders and  _ shook,  _ “Listen to me! Gaping won’t help him! And there will be nobody left to help him at all if we’re overrun again! We can’t all roll over anf die just when we survived the first attack! Do you  _ want  _ to die here? No? Then I need you and Lalli to  _ move!!!”  _

Sigrun’s yelling finally did the trick.

Tuuri dropped the coats.

Slowly, afraid of looking down too far, she came into the storage room and grabbed Lalli by the shoulders.

“Lalli, Sigrun needs you out there. She needs someone else to watch out for trolls.” 

“No.” Lalli flat out refused, then winced as another of Emil’s screams ripped through the air. 

“Please, Lalli,” Tuuri begged him, “Let Mikkel make Emil better, and you need to make sure he’s not eaten by trolls while he’s sick.”

“Not sick!” Lalli yelled back and started chanting again. Before he could even start on the name of the god Tuuri slapped a hand over his mouth, grabbed him by the shirt and  _ pulled. _

“Listen to me, scout!” Tuuri screamed louder than Emil, putting every ounce of authority she had into her voice, “This is your duty! This is your responsibility! You need to do your job so the rest of the team can do theirs! If you don’t, then you have  _ failed,  _ do you understand me?! What good are you if you can’t even do your job?!”

Lalli’s face melted from rage and fear into perfect blankness. Tuuri didn’t let go of him, simply didn’t dare. 

Below them, Emil continued to scream. How was his throat not bleeding already?

“Sigrun needs you out there,” she told him desperately, “Emil needs you out there. There is nothing you can do  _ here,  _ but there is plenty out there. You need to  _ go.” _

And Lalli… Went. Took his shotgun and didn’t even change into his uniform, just went to stand next to Sigrun. Their captain made a few tactical signals, to which Lalli nodded. Then they separated into opposite directions.

Tuuri stood there, frozen to the spot, and felt like a monster.

“Close the doors!” Mikkel yelled, “The less sound is coming out the better!”

Tuuri didn’t want to. She did it anyway. 

She deserved nothing less.


	3. Chapter 3

The fever and the screaming broke almost as quickly as they had started. By Mikkel’s estimate, only around half an hour passed from the moment the first screams began to Emil finally collapsing into a dead faint. The fever broke soon after. 

By the end of it, Reynir looked about as pale as Mikkel’s actual patient. Tuuri had drawn herself into the farthest corner from them, looking like she would have preferred to be back in the sleeping room with the troll that almost bit her. When the screaming finally stopped, she started quietly sobbing.

“He’s alive, Tuuri,” Mikkel said in Icelandic, “And he’s stable right now.”

Tuuri turned around in disbelief, but Mikkel just let her see the rise and fall of Emil’s naked chest for herself. The moment she saw him she started crying in earnest, this time with relief.

“Thank the gods,” she whispered, “Thank the gods.”

When Reynir looked like he was going to join her any second, Mikkel gently but firmly shooed them away into the sleeping chambers, promising to clean up by himself. He dried Emil off completely, bundled him up into clothes and blankets and some stray coats, then picked up the basin and the towels and opened the doors.

Lalli squeezed through the moment Mikkel cracked the doors open. Knowing words would be wasted on him, and someone needed to stay with Emil anyway, Mikkel said nothing. Just closed the doors behind him and went to put his things away.

“How bad is it?” Sigrun asked him as he was hanging the towels up to dry over the sink, “Be honest with me, medic. How long does he have?”

“The gods willing,” Mikkel pretended to do some math in his head, “Around sixty more.”

“Hours or days?” Sigrun asked, looking like she hoped the answer wouldn’t be minutes.

“Years,” Mikkel assured her, smile half mischievous and half comforting. Sigrun looked like she wanted to punch him, so he hurried to add, “Far as I can tell, he’s fine. The fever broke about half an hour in. He’s exhausted, and probably hoarse, but I can’t find anything else wrong with him.”

“Nothing wrong?” Sigrun asked incredulously, “Did you somehow miss the fact that he’s been passed out for an entire day, and then just started screaming from the top of his lungs for no reason?!”

“I did not,” Mikkel put up another towel, “But I am starting to think his ailment is out of my area of expertise.”

“Out of your-? I thought you were a medic!”

“I am. I think this is not a medical condition,” Mikkel said, then elaborated, “Tell me, Sigrun. Who was the last person you saw faint, sleep for over a day, and start screaming seemingly unprompted?”

Sigrun looked at him incredulously. “Well, Twigs. But Puffy said it was mage stuff. Emil’s not a mage, and definitely not a Finnish one.”

“Maybe not. But there is another person who is a Finnish mage, who helped us during the attack, and is in a similar condition.”

“Puffy’s brother?” Sigrun looked like she was connecting the dots as well, “So, what? You think those are related? How?”

“I do not know,” Mikkel said, “As I said, magic is rather far out of my area of expertise. But if I had to hazard a guess… The elder Hottakainen summoned a firebird. Emil was the one with the flamethrower. Perhaps he’d used Emil as a conduit, and Emil, not being a mage, was not able to handle it, resulting in his current condition matching that of the elder Hotakainen.”

“And the screaming?” Sigrun asked, “What was that about? I can’t figure out what set him off. With Twigs it was ghosts, but he already knows the word for them, and he didn’t report anything when I sent him out. We didn’t even find any trolls, and I checked the woods.”

Mikkel paused at that. “Are you sure? Neither of you found anything?”

“Not even a rat beast,” Sigrun frowned thunderously, “It’s weird. Pretty Boy was screaming for all the Silent World to hear, and nothing came to see what all the fuss was about?”

“Hmm, that is unusual,” Mikkel wrung out the last towel and hung it up on the wire above the sink, “Perhaps the firebird left more of an impression than we previously thought. If that is the case, for as long as that impression lasts, this is perhaps the safest area in the Silent World.”

“There was a lot of ‘perhaps’ in that speech,” Sigrun said, not looking any happier than she did when she had no idea what was going on, “And you still haven’t explained the screaming.”

Mikkel sighed. “If my theory about having established a connection is right, it would be safe to assume that it goes both ways.”

“You mean-”

“Nothing yet. Emil is still alive and mostly hale, and until we get a confirmation either way, we will assume Onni is as well.”

“So we tell Tuuri nothing, right?”

“Exactly. Now,” Mikkel dried his hands and fully turned to Sigrun, “How is your arm?”

“...mrglf,” Sigrun grumbled something unintelligible and pulled her sleeve up, revealing yellow-stained bandages. Mikkel grabbed a fresh roll and went about rewrapping Sigrun’s arm.

“Hey, did you give some of that anti-infection stuff to Emil?” Sigrun asked in the middle of having the pus squeezed out of her wounds, “He was attacked by a dozen trolls, he won’t stop bitching until our next expedition if all of those bites scar. Swedes are weird like that, you know? For some reason they don’t appreciate battle scars  _ at all. _ ”

“Then I suppose he was lucky in that regard,” Mikkel told her, not bothering to correct her assumption that antibiotic cream would help with scarring, “He doesn’t have a scratch on him. It seems Onni summoned his firebird in the nick of time.”

Sigrun looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “That’s impossible.”

“Not really, it’s just a matter of-”

“He was attacked long before Puffy’s brother summoned his pet bird,” Sigrun told him insistently, “He was screaming as they piled on top of him. I tried to shoot them but there were too many- He’d stopped screaming well before the fire began.”

Mikkel paused. “I checked him over thoroughly, both today and after the attack. He is neither bitten nor scratched. He's barely bruised. If you hadn’t told me he was attacked before the fire I wouldn't have guessed it at all."

Sigrun frowned thunderously again. "This is getting weirder by the minute. Emil gets attacked but not even nipped, the ghosts are gone and no creature alive or dead dares to approach us now. Just what the Hell did Puffy's brother  _ do? _ "

"I will be sure to ask him the moment he wakes up," Mikkel promised.

"You'd better! Done yet?"

“Almost,” Mikkel tied off the end of Sigrun’s fresh bandages and let her go, “Remember, try not to strain it, and if the pain or the temperature increase you must tell me immediately.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sigrun pulled her sleeve down dismissively, “Since our scout is being useless I’ll do another perimeter check.”

“Are you sure that’s a wise idea?”

“I’ll be back soon, not like I have a lot of work to do since we’re not moving anytime soon. I just…” Sigrun frowned, trying and failing not to look uncomfortable, “Everything about this situation is giving me the creeps. Something is wrong here, and the sooner we find out what, the better.”

“If you say so,” Mikkel agreed placidly. Sigrun saw right through him.

“You don’t think so?”

“No, no, I agree with you,” Mikkel admitted, “But there is a lot about this situation that is far from ideal. I am not sure putting yourself into even more unnecessary risk is a wise idea, especially during the night.”

“Gods dammit, you people are the most insubordinate team I have ever worked with!” Sigrun spat, “Unnecessary risk?! How is being aware of our situation unnecessary? Emil almost died, Mikkel! Still might! If we’re attacked again we could all die!”

“Sigrun-”

“I can’t just sit there and do  _ nothing!”  _ she all but screamed into his face, her eyes just a bit redder than they were a moment ago, “I am the leader here! I am responsible for this team! It’s my job to get those kids home, and I will be damned to Hell and back if I don't do everything in my power to make that happen!” she quieted down a little, looking at Mikkel beseechingly, “They’re goddamn  _ kids,  _ Mikkel.”

“I know,” he sighed. Feeling daring, he drew Sigrun closer and enveloped her into a hug. She tensed for a moment and then wrapped her arms around him and  _ squeezed.  _ She didn’t cry and didn’t sob, didn’t even shake. Just held him like he was the only thing holding her together at the moment.

A minute passed. Her desperate grip on him loosened and he let her go reluctantly.

“I’m going to do a perimeter check,” Sigrun said resolutely, her eyes dry and hard, but once again clear, “I’ll be back in half an hour tops.”

“I’ll be holding you to that.”

Sigrun turned to leave, then paused at the door. “Thanks, Mikkel.”

Mikkel smiled. “Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“This is going a bit beyond the job description,” Sigrun let out a little huff of laughter, “If you’re this dedicated to all of your jobs, you might want to stop by Dalsnes. We could use a man like you.”

Mikkel was surprised, to say the least, but by the time he collected his wits Sigrun was already outside, out of earshot. 

Well then.

* * *

Lalli couldn’t sleep.

That was highly unusual. Although, considering the circumstances, perhaps not entirely surprising.

Next to him, Emil was still and unnaturally silent. Next to Emil, the stupid Icelander had a blanket pulled over his head, having about as much luck trying to sleep as Lalli did. Kitty hadn't even bothered to return.

So much about meeting tonight.

Lalli laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. The open space above him seemed vast and looming and unsafe, not at all helping Lalli’s insomnia. But even if he was under Tuuri’s bunk, his cousin softly murmuring in her sleep, he doubted he would be having more luck than this.

The screaming was still ringing in his ears. Both Emil’s and Tuuri’s. 

He couldn’t stop feeling like he had made a horrible mistake somewhere down the line, a mistake that had landed them all in the current situation. After all, a single mistake on Grandma’s part had ended up with their entire village being destroyed, and history did so love repeating itself. 

The Icelander - no, fine,  _ Reynir _ , he supposed he should get used to calling him by his name if they did end up talking regularly - shuffled under his covers, obviously trying to be quiet. Lalli didn’t even bother trying to inform him how miserably he was failing.

But that was the theme of the day, wasn’t it? Failure. On his part, on Onni’s part, on Reynir’s part, on-

_ Goddamn stupid, messy Swede,  _ Lalli thought,  _ Heart so open even ghosts couldn’t resist the warmth you radiate like the sun. And now look where all that stupid compassion got you. A head full of the evil dead.  _

_ And I can’t do anything about it.  _

Onni might have, but Onni had blown all his power on summoning Kokko. And even if he hadn’t, Lalli wasn’t so sure he would know what to do in this situation. This wasn’t an ordinary possession, requiring an exorcism and guiding the restless spirit to Tuonela. This was countless souls, deformed from fear and rage and nearly a century of wandering, inhabiting a live human. Lalli had never heard of anything like this. The closest thing to this situation he could think of was-

_ No,  _ Lalli’s fingers twisted in the bedding,  _ Emil is not turning into  _ **_that_ ** _. He’s not even a mage, he can’t be! _

_ But who was to say he wasn’t something similar?  _ the voice of his grandmother reminded him,  _ This is the work of foreign magic, one you know nothing about, and the only mage you could ask knows even less. He could be becoming a monster this very moment and you wouldn’t know until it’s too late. _

_ “No,”  _ Lalli clamped his hands over his ears even though he knew it would do little to help. He hated this, hated the noise. Even without ghosts and trolls around it was never quiet in his head, and the voices that were his own were so much harder to block out. 

No wonder Emil decided being in a coma was so much easier. 

“Get ekki heldur sofið?” Reynir sighed softly from the other side, “Fyrirgefðu. Ég held að ég muni ekki geta fundið þig í kvöld.”

Lalli had no idea what he was saying, but his tone was heavy with apologies so he could guess.

Maybe it was better that neither of them ventured into the Dreamsea tonight. Besides the beast waiting for them in its depths, there were now ghosts residing right next to their sleeping space. Lalli didn’t know if they’d somehow become trapped in Emil’s head, or were simply staying there until a better option presented itself.

If that was the case, sleeping next to Emil and leaving his area would be tantamount to suicide.

Lalli turned his back to Emil and stubbornly closed his eyes. 

He would not prove himself useless twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Can't sleep either?" "I'm sorry. I do not think I will be able to find you tonight. "
> 
> I don't speak a lick of Icelandic, so all translations are achieved with Google Translate. I apologize in advance.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I forgot around this part that I wasn't writing Lallikatt. Eh, in both of those Lalli is in love and stupid about it, so this tracks.

Morning dawned cold and grey and damp and barely visible behind the clouds, but it dawned all the same. Lalli was the first one up, followed soon after by Sigrun. When she noticed him awake she made a few gestures he’d learned to interpret as ‘report what you found’. He hadn’t been scouting last night, so he guessed she meant if he could sense something.

“No ghosts,” he said in halting Swedish, “No trolls.”

Sigrun frowned uncomfortably. She let out a stream of gibberish Lalli couldn’t pick apart, but he did catch that she didn’t like something. There was a lot not to like about everything here, more than they could communicate between them, so Lalli didn’t bother to try.

“Emil?” Sigrun asked him after a minute, “Better? No?”

“No better,” Lalli confessed, “No... more bad. Same.”

Sigrun didn’t seem happy about that report but didn’t say anything else. Lalli got the feeling she was just as worried as he was. Emil  _ was  _ her favorite. 

He could even guess why. He seemed to understand Sigrun’s enthusiasm and energy, was even encouraged by it. Unlike Lalli, who had to be told that the shoulder punches she dealt out were meant to be a friendly gesture instead of admonishment. Emil had tried to tell Lalli that, but he also explained it to Sigrun. Lalli knew he did, because instead of punching him she started patting him on the back. It was still more forceful than Lalli was strictly comfortable with, but now it fell within the realm of ‘tolerable’.

That was the thing about Emil. He  _ understood  _ people. Maybe not at first, and he put his foot in his mouth often enough, but it had taken him all of a week to adapt to everyone around him. Tuuri had tried to do the same, but she tried too hard to adapt to what she thought others would have liked her to be. When Lalli complained about the punching to her, she’d just told him that was the way Norwegians said ‘good job’ and didn’t even try to tell their captain to do something else.

Lalli thought that was the difference, when it came down to it. When Tuuri wanted to make friends, she first sought to learn their language. When Emil wanted to make friends, he taught just as much as he learned. Both approaches worked, but Lalli liked Emil’s way better.

Sigrun startled him back to awareness by poking his cheek.

“No sleep?” she asked. Lalli glared at her but he did eventually shake his head. Sigrun said some more gibberish, sighed, and went back to the sleeping quarters. 

Lalli was once again left alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t even surprised when they ran back to Emil.

He wondered if he would ever wake up. He had hoped he would, but at some point Lalli had to get realistic, because what happened to Emil not even grandma would have been able to handle. You couldn’t pacify a ghost you couldn’t lead to the afterlife. If you couldn’t do that, there is nothing you could do for it. Seal it away perhaps, but if grandma had ever known how to do that, she died before she could teach it to Lalli and Onni. 

The only way those ghosts would leave was if someone made them leave or…

Or something else took them in.

“Hey, Lalli,” Tuuri wandered over, still a little bleary eyed, “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Lalli muttered. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

“Sigrun said you didn’t get any sleep last night,” she tilted her head to peer at his face, “And I can tell she was right. She’s doing the scouting now.”

_ That  _ made Lalli sit up at attention. “But I’m the scout! Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Calm down Lalli,” Tuuri pushed him back down, “She just went to check the surrounding area. You don’t need to find a travel route since we’re not going anywhere today,” she sighed in frustration, “Honestly, I’m not sure if we’re going anywhere tomorrow either. Even if we fix the damage in the sleeping compartment, our engine is compromised. At this point I’m starting to think it would be better to take it apart and put it back together.”

“Then we will have to walk,” Lalli could see where this was going, “I need to-”

“No,” Tuuri cut him off, “I  _ will  _ get it fixed.  _ You  _ need to be well rested for the time we do set out.”

Lalli said nothing. He knew being fit enough to do his job was important. It didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Lalli,” Tuuri looked guilty, “Look, I- I’m really sorry I yelled at you yesterday, and what I said to you. I didn’t actually  _ mean  _ it, I promise. You are more useful than just as a scout. I just… It was a bad situation and I didn’t know how to get you moving. Sigrun yelling at me snapped me out of it, but I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m sorry.”

_ You said sorry,  _ Lalli thought,  _ But not that you won’t do it again. Emil would have said it. _

“Lalli?” Tuuri started wringing her hands, “Are you okay?”

_ No. I’m not.  _ “I’m fine.”

Tuuri deflated a little. “Okay. I’ll just… Go fix the tank,” she turned to leave when she abruptly backtracked, “Oh, did you and Reynir meet in the Dreamscape? How did it go?”

“We didn’t,” Lalli told her, “He couldn’t fall asleep afterwards.”

“Ah,” Tuuri grimaced, “Well… Both of you try to get some rest today then.” She looked like she wanted to say something else, then just gave up. She left a second after.

Lalli knew there was really no point in getting mad at Tuuri. If he ignored her she just let herself be ignored until he stopped, and in this situation they couldn’t afford to fight anyway. Emil would have tried to play peacemaker, no matter how long it took, but Emil-

There he went, thinking about Emil again. Had he ever actually stopped?

...well he wasn’t going to find an answer  _ here _ .

Lalli got up from his seat and went out back, into the storage compartment. Reynir was up, looking about as exhausted as Lalli felt. He greeted Lalli through a yawn then went out, muttering something about Mikkel and presumably breakfast.

Lalli sat on his bedspread, pulled the blanket over his head, curled up and watched. 

And waited.

* * *

Around lunchtime, Tuuri was elbow deep in the guts of the tank when Mikkel pulled her away.

“I know you are committed to your job, but don’t think I’m letting you prioritise it over your own health,” he told her and put a bowl of porridge into her hands. He took another bowl and went off with it to the back of the tank, presumably to give the same speech to Lalli.

Tuuri ate her share sullenly, not tasting anything. Which, considering what she was eating, was probably a good thing.

“Ugh, more of this slop,” Sigrun was looking at a piece of carrot on her spoon like it had personally offended her entire family tree, “Hey Puffy, how long do you think it will take you to get the tank moving again?”

Tuuri winced. “...I don’t know, but it’s not looking good.”

“Give me an estimate. Another day or so?”

“More than that,” Tuuri admitted guiltily, “The cables that troll broke are all connected again, this time correctly, but the engine needs work as well,” she bit her lip, refusing to believe it wouldn’t work at all, “Three days, if everything goes well.”

Sigrun didn’t look happy. “That’s two days more than I want to spend here with both of my fighters out of commision, but I guess we have no choice. The tank’s the only reliable shelter we got, and that’s assuming those ghosts don’t come back.”

“I  _ will _ get it going, I promise!” Tuuri swore earnestly, “Just give some time!”

“I’m not doubting you, kid, but time isn’t exactly on our side,” Sigrun said, “We can’t afford to miss that boat. If we’re not there when it comes around, it’s not going to wait for us.”

Tuuri knew that. She knew that she couldn’t afford to fail.

“But, anyway, that’s not what I meant,” Sigrun continued, “We were already low on food when we started this trip, at some point we’re going to start running out. If we’re staying here anyway, we need to find a way to replenish our supplies. I heard running water over to the East,” she pointed in the direction of the forest, “If we’re lucky, it’s a river that’s got fish we can catch. Failing that, Twigs is going to have to part with his sleeping beauty for a while and go hunting with me. Does he know how to hunt anything other than squirrels?”

Tuuri’s face twisted a little at the reminder of the first squirrel she ate on this expedition. At least Mikkel now insisted on Lalli skinning them first before dropping them into the soup. “He can. He just… finds squirrels the most fun to catch.”

Sigrun snorted at that. “Your cousin’s an overgrown cat, I swear. No wonder Pretty Boy likes him so much. He’s the biggest cat person I’ve ever met.”

Tuuri… didn’t really know how to feel about that. Both about Emil ‘liking’ her cousin and Lalli being an overgrown cat. Sigrun wasn’t wrong about either of those, just… Tuuri didn’t really have the mental faculties left to focus on personal feelings amidst all the  _ other  _ things currently on her mind.

Not the least that Emil was currently in a coma and both Lalli and Reynir were eyeing him the same way she looked at the tank’s engine when she wasn’t sure if it was going to explode in her face.

And speaking of the mage-

“Hey, Tuuri?” Reynir sat next to her with his share of lunch, “Do you mind if I take some of your report papers? Blank ones, I mean.”

“Um,” Tuuri reviewed the inventory in her head, “Sure, I can part with some. Not like I have a lot of reports left to write at this point, anyway. Why do you need them?”

“Aaaaah,” Reynir looked uncomfortable, “Well, Lalli asked me to make a rune that would chase away the ghosts, but without bursting into fire. Er, you know, in case they come back. And, well, I don’t really know what I’m doing very well so there will be some trial and error. So we need as much paper as you can spare.”

“How are you going to test it? I thought you said the ghosts were gone.” Tuuri frowned. She was starting to think Reynir was keeping something from her, “Do you know where they went?”

“...we have a feeling,” Reynir squirmed, whether in discomfort or guilt, Tuuri couldn’t discern.

He was definitely keeping something from her, from the entire team. Him and Lalli both were.

Well. Whatever it was, at least it seemed they were doing something about it. And besides, she wasn’t exactly in any position to help, since she wasn’t a mage. 

She was just a non-immune mechanic and a translator. There was only one thing she  _ could  _ do.

“Sure,” Tuuri nodded, “Take as much as you need.”

It was like she told Lalli: he had a job to do, and he couldn’t afford to fail. The same went for her. 

The same went for all of them.

* * *

Reynir sat at Tuuri’s work desk and tried with all of his might to recall what old aunty Helga, the only Icelandic mage he knew, had tried to teach him whenever he was sent to help her around the farm. And even if Reynir didn’t have the remembering capacity of a squirrel sometimes, most of those memories were about her complaining about something. Usually complaining about everything. 

In short, her lessons weren’t helping Reynir very much. The one working rune he did manage to design, he made mostly on intuition, and he hadn’t exactly intended to make it  _ explode.  _ Maybe if he had discovered he was a mage earlier, and had gone to school for it he could have made something that worked properly, and even that was a big ‘maybe’.

As it was, Reynir was about two seconds from banging his head against Tuuri’s typewriter. Lalli looming over his shoulder was pretty much the only thing keeping him sitting in the chair.

“Here,” he finally sighed and handed Lalli the sheaf of papers, “I don’t know what to try anymore.”

Lalli didn’t give any indication that he understood, just took the papers and went out. Reynir stretched thoroughly before he followed. If he hadn’t found a solution he wouldn’t put it past Lalli to herd him back to the desk and keep trying until bedtime. 

Back in the storage compartment, Lalli had left the newest stack of runes at the entrance and was cautiously approaching Emil with each one, one ear turned towards him. Reynir took over the job of handing each new rune to him and accepting the failed ones, wincing a little at the stick figure he drew at some point.

Nothing. Another hour of trying and a good chunk of Tuuri’s paper later, they were left with no solution. There was only one rune that sort of worked, but it just made Emil look like he was having nightmares again without the change in the ghost whispers. 

Reynir sighed, which immediately turned into a yawn. A glance outside confirmed that the sun had started dropping behind the horizon.

“Lalli,” he drew the other mage’s attention, then mimed sleeping followed by pointing a finger first to his and then Lalli’s head. 

Lalli still looked frustrated and sort of like he wanted to kick Reynir’s butt back to the work desk, but he nodded tersely and didn’t bite Reynir’s heels. Reynir was almost pathetically grateful for the break.

Reynir shed his boots and pretty much collapsed next to Emil. He was  _ exhausted.  _ He’d barely gotten a wink of sleep last night, and coming up with entirely new runes turned out to be more tiring than shearing every single sheep on the farm by himself. A giant could probably attack their camp tonight and Reynir would die peacefully in his sleep.

He should have knocked on wood the moment that thought crossed his mind. 

When he heard whimpering he thought Dog had come to find him. But Dog sounded quiet yet urgent, trying to tell him something. Reynir strained his ears to try and figure out what Dog was saying, but all he could pick out were tiny, frightened warnings of ‘fire’.

The illusion shattered when Emil started screaming again.

Reynir jumped a meter in the air as he woke up. Next to him, Emil’s spine was almost completely off his bed, like something was lifting him into the air in the most painful way possible. Lalli was on his knees next to him, once again trying to keep Emil’s hands from tearing his hair out.

_ It’s happening again. _

This time, Reynir was already running when Mikkel opened the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And _this_ is the point where the insomnia started hitting in the heavyweight category. The chapter looks normal NOW, but it sure didn't look that way five hours ago. I'm cleaning them up as I go but at some point I think I'll be better off just rewriting entire chapters.

Reynir did fall asleep eventually. The human body cannot fight the urge to rest forever, no matter how much it may try.

Reynir’s body gave up the fight about two hours after the screaming stopped.

“Try and get some sleep,” Mikkel had said, collecting the wet towels, “If you like, we can switch beds.”

“No,” Reynir had refused, “I… I think it’s better me and Lalli stay here.”

Mikkel had looked at him strangely, but didn’t press the issue. He dried Emil’s thankfully cool body off and dressed him with the same efficiency as he did yesterday. Lalli came in the moment he left, settled down on the cot and went to sleep with a stubborn look on his face, like he could will himself to fall asleep though sheer single-mindedness.

Reynir almost dreaded finding Lalli. But he dreaded waking up without going to find him more, so he got up from his boat and went towards Lalli’s area.

Lalli was already waiting for him on the rocks right outside his swamp. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry,” Reynir said, “I came as soon as I fell asleep.”

Lalli looked… Not mollified at that, but understanding. “Can you find Onni?”

“Um, yeah,” Reynir pointed in the direction he could feel Onni’s spirit residing, “He’s that way.”

“Then go,” Lalli ordered.

So Reynir walked, Lalli following in his footsteps. Reynir wondered where Dog was. Usually he would be waiting for Reynir by the boat, even if he didn’t plan on following him around. 

Onni’s area was just up ahead, and when they reached the rocks outside Lalli shot past him and into the forest. Reynir had to run to keep up with him, grateful that the forest floor was at least easier to walk on than Lalli’s swamp.

“Onni,” he found Lalli talking to a sleeping owl, “We need help.”

“What is it?” the owl asked in Onni’s voice, startling Reynir, “Are you hurt? Is Tuuri?”

“We’re fine,” Lalli told him quickly, “But Emil isn’t. Those ghosts that were chasing us, Kokko didn’t destroy them.”

“Of course she didn’t. She can’t,” Onni admonished him, “Haven’t you listened to a word of what Grandma said? Spirits can’t be destroyed, only guided-”

“They’re in Emil’s head!” Lalli yelled over Onni, “Emil won’t wake up, and I can hear them talking whenever I’m close to him,” he looked at Onni beseechingly, “What do I do, Onni?”

Poor Onni looked so bewildered and frightened that his feathers had fluffed up to twice his size. “The ghosts that were chasing you are now… _possessing him?_ And he’s still _alive?”_ Onni looked between them like they might drop dead any second, “Listen to me, this is important: have either of you looked him in the eyes?”

It struck Reynir as an odd question. “Well, no, he’s been asleep-”

“No,” Lalli was more insistent.

Onni relaxed a fraction. “Good. Then you still have time to kill him safely.”

“We have _what?!”_ Reynir jumped. He couldn’t have heard that correctly-

“NO!!!” Lalli roared, “I won’t! I refuse!”

“Lalli, you _know_ what this means!”

_“He is not a Kade!”_

“Then he is a part of one!” Onni yelled back, then visibly collected himself, “Lalli, I’m sorry. But you can’t let him go just because he’s your friend. That’s exactly how grandma was taken.”

Lalli looked heartbrokenly stricken. Reynir had had enough.

“No!” he poked a finger into Onni’s overly fluffy chest, “We are not doing anything, much less _killing_ our _friend,_ without a damn good explanation! Now tell me what a ‘Kade’ is and why do you think Emil is one, before I start plucking you like a chicken!”

Onni was so taken aback he was about a centimeter away from falling off his branch. Lalli looked like Kitty did whenever she sensed a troll in the vicinity.

Reynir didn’t budge from his position until Onni finally collected himself and sighed.

“I think Icelandic mages have nothing similar to it,” Onni began, “At least, I’ve never heard what happens to one of your own when they get infected. But when a Finnish mage is turned, they sometimes become a troll that is, for lack of a better word, able to infect the soul as well as the body of others. And when a Kade finds another mage and infects them, the mage is… _absorbed_ into the Kade, similar to how several trolls merge to become a Giant. All that’s needed for an infection to happen is eye contact.”

“Okay,” Reynir nodded, “I understand they’re dangerous, but what makes you think Emil is one? He’s not infected, and he’s not even a mage.”

“How would you know?” Onni asked mockingly, “You didn’t know _you_ were a mage until recently, and I got the impression you aren’t a particularly weak one. Your friend is Swedish, isn’t he? They don’t even believe in magic. If he is weak enough to be unable to see spirits, he might have spent his entire life believing he is entirely unmagical, had this possession not happened.”

Reynir didn’t have an answer to that. And neither did Lalli, it seemed.

“But,” Reynir hesitated, “He’s immune. He can’t be infected.”

“Not in body,” Lalli said quietly, “Grandma was immune too. She was taken anyway.”

“By another Kade?” Reynir asked. Lalli nodded. He turned to Onni, who at least had the grace to look apologetic.

“We saw what happens when a Kade gets involved first hand. Take our word for it: the kindest thing you can do for him is kill him while he is asleep, before his transformation is complete.”

Lalli wrapped his hands around himself and turned his face away.

“No!” Reynir shook his head, desperation creeping into his voice, “We can’t just- We can’t! Not until we’ve exhausted our options!”

“And what other options are there?” Onni asked with the last threads of his patience, “Tell me, Icelandic mage. These are your gods. What _options_ have they given you?”

 _The gods._ Reynir had almost forgotten. “What about the Pastor lady?”

“Who?” Lalli’s head shot up.

“She’s a priestess of the Old World temple,” Reynir hurried to explain, “I’ve actually been meaning to ask you, I’ve been trying to find her! I saw her temple in my dream, and I talked to her! She said it was her duty while she was alive to guide lost souls to the afterlife, and that if we brought the ghosts to her she would be able to do the same for them!”

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?!”

“I forgot!” Lalli looked like he was going to attack him when he said that, “When I found her you weren’t in your area so I went to Onni, but he said he didn’t know where to find her, and then everything happened all at once and it… kinda slipped my mind.”

“You met this priestess?” Lalli turned to Onni, eyes full of hope.

Onni sighed. “I have. She seemed… remarkably aware for a spirit that had been on Earth since the Old World fell apart. But she didn’t strike me as powerful enough to actually help you,” he turned to Reynir with one feathery eyebrow raised, “And, as I recall, you still don’t know where she actually _is._ ”

“Well, not in the real world,” Reynir admitted, “But I can find her temple in the dream world, and I thought, Lalli is a scout, if I take him with me maybe he will find a way to lead us there.”

“I…,” Lalli hesitated, “Maybe. Are you sure she will be able to help Emil?”

“I think she will,” Reynir was almost bouncing on his toes, “I’ve been shown the temple in my visions multiple times! All we have to do is bring Emil to her, and she can get the ghosts out of his head! And- And we don’t have to kill anyone! Emil might even get better afterwards!”

Lalli looked stubborn and resolute once more. Onni took one look at his face and put his wing over his head.

“Fine. I clearly can’t stop you. But do try not to do anything stupid.”

“Take me to her,” Lalli ordered, and this time Reynir was more than happy to comply.

They left Onni’s area at a sprint. Reynir paused at the rocks right outside it to feel out where the temple was, then continued running as fast as his dream legs could carry him.

The light of the strange temple shimmered like a strange painting over the dark water, Reznir couldn’t have missed it if he was blind. He hopped over the threshold and inside, Lalli following so fast he crashed into him.

“This is it,” Reynir grinned, “This is the temple.”

“It’s weird,” Lalli scrunched his nose in confusion and not a bit of distaste, “A temple made of painted glass and cold wood. Your gods actually like this?”

Reynir blinked at him. “Kinda, but most temples in Iceland are different from this. But I thought Onni said you have temples like this as well? From the Old World, I mean. There are a few like this back home, it’s just that nobody lives in them anymore.”

Lalli looked at Reynir like he’d started sprouting another head. Reynir self-consciously patted his shoulders to check. Nope, still just one.

“You wanna look around?” Reynir offered awkwardly, “Maybe you will find something that will help you lead us to it? I’ll go look for the Pastor Lady. She’s usually here.”

Lalli nodded and hared off to root around. Reynir stood in place for a moment, trying to get a feel for where the Pastor might be.

What he sensed was… weird, to borrow Lalli’s word for it. Reynir _could_ feel her presence, most strongly coming from a room a little ways away from the altar, but she did not respond to his knocking. Curious, he opened the door to peer inside, but the small room was empty. There was only a little tea table with a wooden bed.

“I guess she’s not asleep yet,” Reynir shrugged, “Huh. Didn’t know ghosts still had sleep schedules.”

Oh well. Maybe she was an early riser. Their dreams had overlapped before, but at this point it was probably closer to morning in the real world. He and Lalli fell asleep kinda late, and then spent some time in Onni’s forest. 

“Where is the priestess?” Lalli asked right behind him, startling Reynir out of his wits.

“DON’T DO THAT!!!” Reynir yelled, hand over his heart.

Lalli didn’t look impressed. “Where is the priestess?”

“I guess we just missed her,” Reynir shrugged, blood pressure slowly falling to acceptable levels, “She’s usually here, but sometimes I can’t find her in the temple.”

“She’s not bound to it?” Lalli didn’t look happy with that, “Wandering spirits are far more unstable than bound ones.”

“No, she said she is bound to the temple,” Reynir said, trying to remember her words, “But… She did say she could leave when she wished. But she knew she still had a purpose to fulfill, and she was here waiting for it to come. Maybe she can leave the temple but not far? Or she is not sleeping.”

“Mrr,” Lalli looked at Reynir like he was an idiot again, then seemingly accepted it, “How big is this temple? Are you sure what you see in the Dreamscape is all of it?”

“I don’t know,” Reynir thought about it, “I… think it is. How much do you see from the outside?”

Instead of answering, Lalli led him outside. He pointed at the edge of the area, which faded into the dark sea only a few meters outside the temple walls.

“It’s just this temple and the path,” Lalli told him, “But not much area around it.”

“Did you find some road signs leading here?”

“No,” Lalli muttered, “Nothing. Just this temple.”

“I guess that’s what her, er, area is?” Reynir tilted his head. It was tall, with an uneven cross on top of the roof. “And I think this is what it looked like back in the Old World. It’s probably changed in the years it’s been abandoned.”

“Then how are you sure it’s not just in ruins by now?”

“The Pastor Lady is still here,” Reynir pointed out.

“She could be haunting the ruins,” Lalli speculated, “But the temple looks good. Solid. Maybe it’s still standing.”

“So you think you can find it?” 

“Mrr,” Lalli grumbled, “If you found it in the Dreamscape, it has to be close. Tuuri can find it on a map, and I can scout it. Yes.”

“ _Y_ _es!!!_ ” Reynir jumped in the air with pure jubilation. If Lalli hadn’t jumped as far out of the way as he could he would have probably gotten hugged to death.


	6. Chapter 6

Reynir and Lalli were still asleep.

Mikkel calmly stored the cooling remnants of the breakfast porridge and started in on the laundry. It had been raining this morning and everyone who had ventured outside was once again covered in mud. Luckily for Mikkel’s soap supplies, that did not include their mages.

It was, however, the only silver lining he had managed to find so far.

Sigrun and Tuuri weren’t worried when he brought it up with them, even going as far as to forbid him from waking them up. When Mikkel expressed concerns about their health, he had gotten a lengthy lecture about how mages, both Icelandic and Finnish, could traverse dreams to communicate over large distances. Even the real world language barriers did not apply. Tuuri had been sure they were in the process of asking her brother for help, and waking them up could interrupt an important conversation.

Mikkel considered what they were saying carefully. “When you said Reynir had contacted Onni right before we were attacked, is this what you meant?”

“Well, yes,” Tuuri blinked at him, “How else would he have done it? Reynir doesn’t even know how to adjust to the hailing frequency on the radio.”

How else indeed? With that new information to mull over, Mikkel washed their dishes, put away Lalli and Reynir’s portion and went on with his duties. Tuuri had returned to cursing the engine in Finnish and Sigrun had taken Kitty with her to do another perimeter check. 

She’d taken to doing them twice a day, and each time she returned with nothing to report but eerie silence, which meant she got more and more uneasy. Frankly, Mikkel was starting to agree. The weather was getting warmer, the Silent World should have been slowly waking up, and not just trolls. Birds, small immune rodents, even deer. They should have encountered  _ some  _ sort of life by now.

But there was nothing. Never before had Mikkel thought the Silent World so aptly named. 

Sigrun had started taking Kitty, thinking maybe the trolls were simply refusing to come out of hiding when she walked by. But on the last trip, Sigrun had returned with Kitty fast asleep in her arms, her rifle cold over her shoulder.

“I don’t like this,” she’d told Mikkel as he’d been sorting through their book collection, “I can understand why trolls and animals are avoiding this area, but I went scouting pretty far up ahead, and I still found nothing.”

“Maybe there simply  _ are _ no other trolls in the area,” Mikkel guessed, “Maybe they were all part of the original horde that attacked us.”

“I doubt it. Any given area always has at least another third as many trolls as you think there are,” Sigrun imparted some of her hunting wisdom, “Maybe if we’d been keeping quiet and only moved during the day, this level of activity would be normal. But we haven’t been doing either of those, and still nothing! Trolls all the way over in Copenhagen should have heard us at least twice now, but nothing came. Hell, I’m starting to think the screaming is scaring them off instead of drawing them here!”

“Well it has been pretty loud,” Mikkel said placidly.

“Do you think it will continue?” Sigrun asked uneasily.

Mikkel didn’t bother sugarcoating it. “It’s extremely likely. It has started twice now at almost the same time and lasted the exact same amount of time, with the exact same symptoms. We might have to accept that this will be a regular occurence until Emil wakes up.”

_ If he wakes up,  _ Mikkel didn’t say. Maybe he was sugarcoating it a little.

“Any new ideas what’s causing it?” Sigrun asked without much hope.

“Unfortunately, no. I’ve radioed the base and they reported that the elder Hotakainen’s condition has not changed. They have a doctor coming to check on him once a day, and other than exhaustion everything seems normal.”

“So the one theory we did have has been wrong,” Sigrun sighed and sat next to him, absently petting Kitty when she jumped into her lap, “We’re back to square zero and all we did was a waste of time.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Mikkel lowered his book, “Now we know what  _ isn’t  _ wrong with him, which narrows down our options. It means we’re closer to the real answer than when we started, and therefore closer to finding a solution.”

Sigrun opened her mouth to argue, but was almost immediately interrupted by Reynir and Lalli bursting in through the entrance in a rush of excited babble. Well, excited babble on Reynir’s part and urgent orders on Lalli’s.

“Slow down,” Mikkel forced them to sit down before they got any further, then turned to Reynir, “Now, what did you want to tell us?”

“We think we found a way to save Emil!”

“Emil?” Sigrun stood up anxiously, “What’s he talking about, Mikkel? What happened to Emil? Has he gotten worse?”

“On the contrary,” Mikkel smiled, just a little bit smug, “It seems all that sleeping paid off. They’re saying they’ve found a way to help him.”

The first bit of good news in the last two days had Sigrun smiling like the sun had come out. It made Mikkel smile in turn.

“Now then,” Mikkel turned back to Reynir, the only mage he could understand, “How, and what can we do to help?”

What followed was a long and roundabout explanation of a lot of things Mikkel and Sigrun had been wondering about. Sigrun was very much  _ not happy  _ to find out her right-hand warrior was in a coma because he was  _ possessed,  _ but she was mollified that there was a relatively simple solution to the problem.

“So we need to find this temple, and this spirit priestess is going to help him?” Sigrun was grinning, “Sounds doable, especially with Twigs willing to part with his sleeping beauty to go scouting again. Puffy, you think you can find it on a map?”

Tuuri, who had joined them at some point, nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll do my best. This area can’t have that many temples, and if Reynir could walk to it in a dream then it can’t be that far.  _ Lalli, tule auttamaan minua. _ ”

She switched to Finnish, and she and Lalli left to go rooting through the expedition maps. Before Reynir could join them, Mikkel held him back.

“Are you certain this ‘priestess’ you found is who she says she is?” Mikkel asked him doubtfully, “We haven’t had much luck with spirits as of late, who is to say she isn’t like them?”

“But I talked to her,” Reynir protested, “She sounds nothing like the other ghosts. They’re all sad, and lonely, and scared, and- And she’s good, I’m sure of it. Onni was, too.”

Mikkel was still sceptical. “Did you at least ask which god she served?”

“Um, no,” Reynir shrugged, “But she said something about a ‘heavenly father’, so I guess Odin?”

Mikkel raised an eyebrow. “And what did her temple look like?”

“Uh, like a stone house with painted windows,” Reynir said, “And on top of the roof was like a ‘t’ sign, like this,” he crossed his index fingers to show Mikkel what he meant.

And Mikkel… Laughed. There was really no other possible reaction. “It’s not a temple to Odin.”

“Oh? Did she mean Yimmir then?”

“No, no,” Mikkel patted Reynir on the shoulder, trying to keep his smile from turning into a smirk, “Though you are perhaps closer with that guess. No, it’s a temple of a god that had once reigned over much of the Old World. Their name was lost to time even before the Old World ended, so they called them the ‘Heavenly Father’. The temple in question is called a Church.”

“Wow!” Reynir looked fascinated, “How do you know so much about it?”

“My family still keeps one of the Old World books called a Bible,” Mikkel explained, “It was said to have been written by the prophets of this god, a long time ago. But nobody believes in him anymore, of course. After all, the world as our ancestors knew it ended on his watch.”

“Oh,” Reynir looked worried, “I didn’t think to ask if she was still in contact with her god. And Onni did say she didn’t seem that powerful. What if she’s right and she won’t be able to help Emil?”

“I didn’t say she needed help from her god to cure Emil,” Mikkel pointed out, “After all, you are a mage of substantial power, and yet you’ve probably said all of one prayer in your life, haven’t you?”

Reynir positively squirmed with embarrassment. “Pretty much.”

“And you still have magic. Why would the same not apply to this pastor? She has weathered over ninety years on her own, it stands to reason that, if she can help Emil at all, she can do it on her own as well.”

Reynir did seem to feel a bit better after that, if a bit conflicted. Mikkel considered his job here done. 

He had resigned himself to the existence of magic and ghosts. He would have been a fool not to, at this point. Gods, on the other hand, he remained sceptical of. If they had ever existed, they had probably given humanity whatever gifts they could and then left for greener pastures.

And if they had stayed… They obviously weren’t very worthy gods, to rule a world as wretched as this one.

* * *

Looking for ancient temples - churches, as Mikkel had called them - took up almost the entire rest of the day. Sigrun decided not to point it out, though. The discovery their little mages made led to a nice boost in morale, which was sorely needed. They still had at least three days before they would absolutely have to pack up and start trekking, and this area remained safe, for one reason or another. 

“Okay,” Puffy spread the maps all over Mikkel’s bunk, the only large and dry flat area they could all fit, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

“Good news first,” Sigrun ordered. 

“Good news is: I’ve found several likely candidates for the church Lalli described, and at least four of them are close enough to our route that we could check them out without making a detour.”

“That’s great news,” Sigrun grinned, “And the bad news?”

Tuuri sighed. “This Old World god was very popular. Lalli and Reynir helped me mark the potential area where the church  _ could be,  _ based on the distance we crossed since Reynir started seeing it, and,” she gestured to the maps in defeat, “We have nowhere near enough time to check them all out.”

Sigrun could see what she meant. Tuuri had marked the potential areas in red ink, and there were at least ten circles on just the first map Sigrun saw.

“So it’s not a problem of finding the temple, but finding the right one,” Sigrun frowned. 

“Essentially,” Tuuri shuffled the maps around, then pointed at two circles, “Lalli already went out to check these two. If we’re lucky, it’s one of them. If not, he will probably be back around morning tomorrow.”

“That’s a lot of distance to run in a night and a half. You sure he can do it?”

“Mikkel gave him water and rations, and Reynir said he could check in on him during the night,” Tuuri avoided the question. Meant she wasn’t entirely sure either.

“Well, he’s gone already,” Sigrun pushed away from the seat with the maps, “Nothing we can do now except wait for him. If he runs into trouble he’s smart enough to know to backtrack. I’m not sure how far the safe area stretches, but he should be fine for at least two kilometers.”

Puffy didn’t look very consoled, but it was the best Sigrun could do in this situation. She patted Puffy’s back the same way she would Twigs, then left to eat some sludge Mikkel euphemistically called ‘lunch’. 

Hopefully Twigs would bring back more squirrels. 

The rest of the day was less eventful. Sigrun took Mikkel fishing while Puffy tried to fix the engine and Braidy… She didn’t know, tried to consult the gods or something? Dammit, she really needed to teach that kid to invoke gods properly. At this point even Emil knew how to pray like a proper viking, whether he liked it or not, she couldn’t let their one Icelandic mage embarrass himself even further!

“I don’t think you are going to attract fish by bouncing the pole,” Mikkel remarked, the bastard.

“Ugh,” Sigrun glared at her pole, which was indeed bouncing along with her leg, “I can’t believe I managed to forget how much I hate fishing.”

“Somehow I am not surprised you would hate the one hunting activity that requires standing still and staying silent,” Mikkel lifted his own pole, and sure enough, another fish was dangling from it. He removed it expertly and let it go in the bucket with four others like it. That made Mikkel’s five to Sigrun’s zero. She was  _ this close  _ to just using the fishing pole as a spear to even their score when Mikkel spoke again.

“The sun is close to setting. This is enough for dinner, and I want to be ready before Emil starts acting up again.”

It shut her up faster than entering a troll infested building would have. She wrapped up their poles while Mikkel carried the bucket to the portable stove. Puffy was still at the engine, looking like she was three seconds away from beating it into submission.

“How’s it going?” Sigrun dared to ask.

Puffy growled like a feral animal, so she wisely decided to take her business elsewhere. 

Dinner was some kind of fish chowder, and definitely tastier than the usual slop. Which honestly wasn’t saying much, but considering what they’d been eating so far it was practically delicacy.

“Sigrun,” Mikkel called her when they were finished, “I need your help.”

“Name it.”

“When Emil’s-  _ episode,  _ starts up again I need you to help me restrain him,” Mikkel said calmly, “From what I’ve seen so far, I think it would be best to tie his hands and legs to the piping in storage.”

“What? No!” Sigrun was appalled, “Why would we do that? Did he try and attack you or something?”

“No, I would have managed if that was the case,” Mikkel said, still putting away the dishes like they were having a conversation about the weather, “Rather, when he starts acting up he tries to harm himself. Primarily tear his hair out and claw at his face. Lalli usually holds him down for me while I cool him off, but Tuuri has already said he would not be here tonight.”

Sigrun said nothing. What the Hell was there to even say? She knew she would have to do it, that it was for Emil’s own good, and if Twigs could stand to see his sleeping beauty writhing in pain while he had to hold him down, then so could she.

Didn’t mean she liked it one bit.

There were a lot of things she’d had to do on this expedition that she didn’t like. And to think, this was supposed to be a  _ vacation.  _

Somewhere in Asgard, the gods were laughing at her. 

“Sigrun?” Mikkel startled her from her thoughts, “If it makes you that uncomfortable, I can-”

“No,” Sigrun said firmly, “I’ll do it.”

Mikkel dared to look sceptical. Sigrun turned on him, teeth bared, “Just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean I’m going to shirk my responsibilities! When I do, I’ll damn well court martial  _ myself  _ for dereliction of duty!”

“Big words, coming from you,” Mikkel smirked, the bastard, “But admirable, nevertheless.”

Sigrun was going to strangle him at some point on this expedition, she knew it.

But then Mikkel brought out rope and started padding Emil’s wrists and ankles with gauze and bed foam, and all of Sigrun’s thoughts of revenge flew out the window to be replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The sun had started to set. Braidy had brought the basin with cold water and towels, looking like Sigrun felt. He eyed the restraints with an uncomfortable look on his face, but didn’t say anything. Tuuri had done what Sigrun wanted to do, which was wait next to the radar with a shotgun on her lap. If their luck ran out and some grossling did come to see what all the noise was about, she was to shoot first and come get them later.

Sigrun wasn’t so lucky, so she ended up sitting on her heels with Emil’s head on her lap. Mikkel was worried that he might try to bang his head against the floor, so Sigrun’s job was to make sure he didn’t give himself a concussion. 

It also meant she was going to get a front-row seat to his anguished screaming. Gods, she could not put into words just how much she wanted to be anywhere other than here. 

But this was her right-hand warrior. The Little Viking she was training to be great like her one day. She refused to fail him when he needed her the most. When the team needed her to do her best. There was really nothing else to do.

Emil’s temperature was slowly rising, though he wasn’t stirring just yet. When Sigrun informed Mikkel of it they quickly undressed him and slipped the ropes over his wrists and ankles. That done, Mikkel looked at his watch and noted down the time of the changes. To be better prepared the next time, he’d said. 

Braidy was fiddling with one of the towels, squinting in Emil’s direction like he was seeing something she couldn’t. He probably was. Sigrun didn’t know if she wanted to know what.

All of those ghosts that were chasing them were now inhabiting the pretty head resting on her lap. She couldn’t really blame Emil for screaming his throat raw. She didn’t know how she would have handled all of those bloodthirsty spirits tearing her mind apart from the inside, but it probably wouldn’t have been pretty either.

There was also the question of what was going to be left when Braidy’s priestess got them out. If there was going to be anything left at all. 

Emil’s temperature was rising. He looked like he was in pain. Mikkel noted that down too. 

Less than a minute later, she wasn’t thinking anything at all, except how to keep Emil still while he screamed.

The trolls did not come that night either.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the Angst tag comes into play, so be warned.
> 
> Also, I've looked at the text I got from this point, and I think it's better I formally reclassify the rest of it as 'outline' and write proper chapters from scratch.

The high sun of the next day brought Lalli with it. Along with some disappointing news.

“He says the churches he found weren’t the right ones,” Tuuri translated her cousin’s news. It wasn’t surprising, really, but it did dash everyone’s hopes a bit.

“It was a long shot anyway,” Sigrun shrugged, “It’s more likely that we’ll find it going forward. If Braidy’s still seeing it, that means it’s somewhere in our future, right?”

Tuuri knew less about the abilities of Icelandic mages than she did about Finnish ones, so she repeated the question to Reynir. The Icelander in question thought about it for a moment, then announced that Sigrun was probably right.

It all returned to the fact that they needed the tank moving, and they needed it moving  _ soon.  _

It should have been a motivating thought. It wasn’t. But being terrified of failure did throw Tuuri into her work nevertheless, it just came with an additional dose of insomnia.

That was on top of the usual insomnia caused by her teammate screaming every night.

So Tuuri worked and didn’t complain. At some point even Reynir and Lalli stopped coming to her for translations, managing either with crude drawings or waiting until they could meet in dreams. They’d informed her Onni was still asleep and regaining his energy, but was otherwise fine. That was the last they’d seen fit to bother her with.

Sigrun mostly left her alone as well. She sent Mikkel and Reynir fishing, and went hunting with Lalli. Since nothing had come into their camping area for several days now Tuuri was technically allowed to wander around as well, though she passed on the offer. Getting the tank working again was far more important.

The only person who really talked to her anymore was Mikkel, and that was mostly to force her to eat and rest. He usually offered a bit of pep talk along with food, but other than that he didn’t bother her either. 

She worked. The team tried not to bother her. She tried not to lose hope. Emil screamed. The engine still wasn’t working. 

She was losing hope. Mikkel and Sigrun were quietly talking about starting to pack up and walk. Tuuri was persistent that she just had to  _ get the damn engine to actually start gods dammit,  _ they wouldn’t have to walk just yet.

At that point even Reynir didn’t entirely believe her anymore. 

“The sun is starting to go down,” Mikkel told her on the sixth evening, “Can you set up a perimeter guard while we prepare?”

“What’s even the point?” Tuuri snarked as she slammed the hub down, “We’re the only living things for kilometers. Lalli can’t even find squirrels to hunt. We’re just wasting acumulator power we can’t afford to waste!” Tuuri kicked the tire like she could intimidate the tank into starting, “Maybe if the damned thing got the opportunity to cool down this  _ piece of shit would actually start!” _

Mikkel was entirely nonplussed at her outburst. Instead he looked thoughtful. “You know, you might be onto something.”

“I am?” She was? She’d just been venting.

“Well you’re the mechanic, so I wouldn’t dare to assume I know more than you,” Mikkel held his hands up, “But just the fact that you’ve suggested it as a likely solution speaks volumes.”

“You think that will work?” Tuuri mulled it over a bit. Well, it was one of the few things left that she  _ hadn’t  _ tried. At this point it might as well be what would get them moving. She was out of ideas anyway.

“It’s worth a shot,” Tuuri sighed, “But that means we can’t turn on heating either.”

“We’re all sleeping in piles of three,” Mikkel reminded her, “And if we end up having to walk we will all have to sleep in a tent without heating anyway. It seems like a worthwhile sacrifice.”

Permission granted, Tuuri set up the radar rods but didn’t turn them on. She rewired some stuff under the hub, closed it down and got into the driver’s seat just as the screaming started.

She thought she was starting to get used to it. It didn’t even seem so loud anymore. Either Emil didn’t have the strength to scream anymore or she was going deaf. At this point, both of those were equally likely.

When it stopped, 26 minutes on the dot, Mikkel and Sigrun came into the sleeping room. Sigrun didn’t even say anything, just clambered into her bunk and pulled a pillow over her head. Tuuri was pretty sure her ears were still ringing.

She didn’t notice that the radar did not ping when she came in from storage. Mikkel probably didn’t either. Tuuri followed them to bed, hesitantly standing in the entrance.

“I, uh, turned off the heating. We need to conserve power,” she told Sigrun.

“Ugh, that’s gonna suck. But good call, Puffy,” Sigrun groaned and turned her back to the rest of them. And that was that.

They went to sleep, a little cold but too exhausted to care.

Nobody thought that it would be the very evening their luck ran out.

Lalli hadn’t noticed something following him.

Reynir did not notice something coming closer.

Sigrun did not notice the radar was turned off.

Mikkel did not think to set up watch turns.

Nobody noticed their visitor.

Nobody except Emil.

* * *

_ Warmth. There was Warmth. _

_ It clung to a little creature of fresh meat and clear eyes. They thought at first that the Warmth was coming from it, but it wasn’t. It enveloped it like a fur coat, kept it warm from the cold of the world, but it wasn’t the one it belonged to. _

_ They wanted that Warmth as much as they feared it. The sun was warm too, but it burned if they got too close. This Warmth felt similar, but softer. Like fire. But fire still burned if you got too close. _

_ But they were so, so cold, and so alone. They had memories of Others, like them, and they weren’t so lonely, but they were gone gone  _ **_gone-_ **

_ They followed, but did not get too close. _

_ They followed, and waited. And then there were voices screaming FIRE FIRE FIRE but they did not burn. They calmed, and only Warmth remained. _

_ They feared, but they approached. It was a great, strange beast, utterly metal and cold except for the souls cradled in its belly. And there was the Warmth, coming from the Warm One. _

_ They came to the cold wire surrounding the metal creature, but did not dare cross. Memories they could no longer clearly recall, from Before, made them wary to cross, to touch the burning wire. _

_ But the Warm One was inside, and they wanted to come. They wanted to Join them, even though they had never Joined anything else, even the creatures they used to run with. But there were Many with the Warm One, and there was Warmth for everyone. _

_ They wanted to Join them, but they did not know how. _

_ “Awwoooo,” they mourned, they called. Would the Warm One accept someone as cold and small as them? They wanted that Warmth, they wanted so much to Join. Would they be enough? _

_ Then the mouth of the metal beast opened, and the Warm One stepped out. They had clear eyes, but it was Them, and They carried the Warmth. _

_ “We are cold,” they said to the Warm One, with eyes glowing like the moon and golden fur the color of sun. _

_ “Then come to us,” the Warm One came closer to them, “Come and rest at the hearth, and you will no longer be cold and alone.” _

_ They approached cautiously, but the Warm One did not turn them away. They took their head in Their warm hands, and brought Their face closer, laid Their forehead to theirs, and- _

_ And then there was Warmth. _

* * *

Stupid, stupid,  _ stupid. _

Reynir hadn’t come to take Lalli to the temple. He’d come to Lalli’s area just long enough to ask, then left to look for his dog, which was something Icelanders had instead of Luontos. If Reynir’s was missing, Lalli had to grudgingly respect him for functioning as well as he had the last few days.

So Lalli was left to seep in his area, which he sorely needed. He was rather disgruntled when something woke him up.

He was cold, not understanding why he woke up at all. He’d actually almost gotten used to sleeping in an open space. He still hated it, but he was exhausted enough that he fell asleep anyway.

He was exhausted enough that he couldn’t wake up in time either.

There was something  _ weird  _ in the air. But there was  _ always  _ something weird in the air these days, with countless ghosts inhabiting the mind sleeping next to him. Lalli couldn’t pinpoint it at first, until he turned to look at Emil and saw Reynir.

Saw the storage doors open.

“Emil!” he called, and he could see Emil outside, could see his hair shine in the moonlight, could see-

A wolf beast laid at Emil’s feet, its head cradled in his arms. It was still and placid as if tame, and Emil held it like it was an uninfected puppy.

Lalli’s heart was in his throat. No, no, he couldn’t be, Onni couldn’t be right, they’d been  _ so close- _

Emil turned around, and looked Lalli in the eye.

His eyes were glowing violet.

“Hi, Lalli,” he greeted with a gentle smile, voice slightly hoarse, “Did I wake you up?”

He asked like this was an ordinary night and Lallli had just come back from scouting, like his eyes weren’t  _ glowing  _ and he’d brought a wolf beast into their camp, like Reynir wasn’t right behind Lalli and non-immune, like he was  _ still Emil- _

_ But he wasn’t. _

The Kade got up, the wolf beast still on the ground, and he was coming closer.

Lalli slapped a hand over his eyes and stumbled a step back.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid,  _ Lalli screamed in his head,  _ You made the exact same mistake that got Grandma killed! That got the entire village killed! Now everyone here is dead and it’s your fault! _

“Lalli?” the Kade was close, close enough to touch, “What’s wrong?”

“Lalli?” Reynir’s voice came from behind, then rose in pitch, “Emil? Þú ert vakandi!”

“Don’t look him in the eye!” Lalli yelled at the stupid,  _ stupid  _ Icelander who didn’t understand Finnish and was  _ coming closer. _

Warm hands enveloped his, wrapped around his cold fingers that were covering his eyes. Emil had no right to be this warm on a cold winter night, didn’t have any right to be warm at all now that he was a Kade. But why in the world would Emil ever listen to reason and rules and how things should be?

“It’s okay, Lalli,” the Kade was saying softly, not moving Lalli’s hands away just yet. He knew he didn’t need to. “They’re all here with me, but they can’t come out. They can’t hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Such pretty lies. Did Emil lie like that all the time? Lalli wished he’d never known that, wished he didn’t understand what Emil was saying. He would have preferred to never understand a single word that came out of the Swede’s mouth rather than hear perfect Finnish spelling the most damning lies.

“Emil?” Reynir sounded bewildered, “Síðan hvenær talar þú íslensku?”

Lalli heard the doors of the tank opening, followed by footsteps.

_ No no no no no no,  _ Lalli couldn’t let this happen, he had to get them away while he still had control of himself-

The Kade pried his fingers away from his face, and Lalli resisted but when it came to sheer muscle Emil was stronger than him. The Kade with Emil’s face looked so concerned for him Lalli could have cried.

“Reynir, what’s wrong?” the Kade asked, “Why won’t he look at me?”

Lalli could pinpoint the exact moment Reynir remembered what Onni told him, about how a Kade infects its victims. He gasped, took a step back, hopefully covered his eyes. Then ran past Lalli, yelling for their other teammates.

Good. Maybe they could still be saved.

“Lalli, why is Reynir screaming that I’m a troll?” the Kade asked, sounding simply confused, “I thought he knew I’m immune? And why does he think I suddenly know Icelandic?”

It was such an Emil thing to say, Lalli’s eyes watered against his will. Why did it have to sound so much like Emil? Wasn’t taking him enough? Wasn’t wearing his face like a  _ trophy _ enough?

The Kade thumbed Lalli’s tears away gently, and Lalli was already damned, he looked the Kade in its stolen eyes and it was a miracle his thoughts were still his own. Looking twice wouldn’t make him any more damned than he already was, would it?

“There you are,” the Kade practically cooed when Lalli finally opened his eyes, “I was getting worried. If the wolf scared you, he’s dead now. Well, he’s here with the rest of the party,” the Kade tapped his temple lightly, “but its body is just an empty husk now. It can’t hurt anyone.”

“And you?” Lalli dared to ask, “Will you hurt us?”

The Kade looked taken aback. “What? Of course not! You’re my friends! Why in the world would I want to hurt you?”

He sounded so earnest. Like he actually meant it. And Lalli… Lalli let himself hope. Hope that whatever Emil was now, it wasn’t a Kade. That it was still  _ Emil,  _ despite the different shape he came in now. Because behind the violet glow of Emil’s eyes he was still looking at Lalli with such kindness and concern, the same look that Lalli fell in love with.

Buoyed by that desperate hope, and his heart so high in his throat he could feel himself choking on it, Lalli leaned forward, closing in on Emil’s-

Sigrun screamed.

There was a gunshot.

Then darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Emil! You're awake!"  
> "Emil? Since when do you speak Icelandic?" - Reynir.
> 
> If it's atrocious, I apologize, and blame google translate


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go lovelies, a nice long chapter for Halloween.
> 
> Warning for veeeeery thinly veiled metaphors for trauma and healing. Also mangling of Norse mythology.

Reynir had woken up straight into a nightmare.

He remembered Onni’s words, that the only way to stay alive was to kill Emil in his sleep, before he became a monster. 

They didn’t listen, and now Lalli was gone. Emil held his face in his hands, had pried the fingers off Lalli’s eyes, and suddenly started speaking Icelandic to Reynir. That was not Emil anymore.

Reynir ran. Ran so fast he collided with Mikkel, almost squishing Kitty between them.

Kitty was hissing. It felt like the last nail in a coffin.

“Reynir,” Mikkel steadied him with one hand on his shoulder, “What happened?”

“Emil turned into a troll!” Reynir sobbed, “Onni warned us he was becoming a Kade but we didn’t listen and now he’s got  _ Lalli,  _ and I’m so so sorry-”

“Hva i helvete snakker han om?” Sigrun hefted her rifle higher with her good arm and went around Reynir.

“No, wait!” Reynir grabbed her arm, “Mikkel, help me! Emil went-  _ bad.  _ Onni said only a Kade can survive having so many souls in it, and they’re dangerous! You can’t look Emil in the eyes, or you’ll be infected too!”

“Reynir, Emil is immune,” Mikkel reminded him, like Reynir didn’t already know that, “He can’t be infected. Nevertheless, we’ll go check it out, and you go wait with Tuuri in the tank.”

“No, you don’t understand-” he was cut off by Sigrun’s startled curse and an echoing gunshot.

The world seemed to stop around Reynir. His breath caught, Kitty squirmed out of Mikkel’s arms and into his, Sigrun was saying something, Mikkel was moving, but Reynir stood frozen to the spot. It was over, over,  _ over,  _ all because of Sigrun’s one startled shot, and they were  _ dead- _

Emil’s voice came, startled and a bit angry.  _ Swedish. _

Reynir turned around.

Emil and Sigrun were saying something to each other, something Reynir had no hope of picking out, her good arm thrown around Emil's shoulder. Mikkel was outright checking Emil over, and Lalli-

Lalli was in Emil’s arms, face hidden in his shoulder and arms around his waist. Emil had one hand on the nape of Lalli’s neck and the other around his back. To an unsuspecting observer, it looked like Emil was comforting him.

Now that his eyes were back to their usual blue, even Reynir could barely believe what he had seen.

But he saw. He knew. That wasn’t Emil anymore. That wasn’t Lalli anymore.

And he had no way to prove it.

* * *

Emil’s throat hurt. And his head, but the throat was currently a priority.

Sigrun wanted him to  _ talk.  _ Like Emil had even half an idea what the hell was going on.

“Here,” Mikkel handed him a steaming mug of something that smelled like tea, “I added syrup to it. It should make your throat feel better.”

“Thanks,” Emil accepted the metal cup and gently blew on it. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but it probably either came from Mikkel’s medical supplies, or it was some greenery Lalli found in the forest. Either way, it tasted amazing after eating nothing for days. Even Mikkel’s stew, currently warming over the fire, smelled appetising right now.

“Alright, I don’t usually say this, but I need you to start at the beginning,” Sigrun told him, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, “You’ve been out for five days now, and screaming yourself raw every night. You worried Twigs half to death! I think it’s in everyone’s best interest you spill every bean you got on this.”

“Can I eat first?” Emil nodded towards the pot on the stove, “Food in the Dreamscape doesn’t exactly carry over. At this point, even Mikkel’s food is bound to taste good.”

“Spoken like a truly starving man. Eat while you talk,” was Sigrun’s concession, “Take a break if you need to, but we need to start soon. As you can see,” she waved a hand at the wolf beast’s corpse, “our grace period has run out. Some of us need to go stand guard soon.”

Emil rolled his eyes. “You didn’t have to shoot it. It was already dead.”

“Maybe, but it walked all the way over here, didn’t it?” Sigrun raised an eyebrow, “Seriously, Blondie, we’re dying over here. Tell us while the translators are still on duty.”

“We’ll translate while you eat,” Mikkel said as he handed Emil a bowl of stew, “That way you can get some food in you while we talk. And it’s better to eat slowly after fasting for five days.”

Emil gratefully shoveled the stew into his mouth. Next to him, Lalli was looking at him with such focus Emil would have been an embarrassed mess had he the presence of mind to feel anything other than hungry. 

Lalli hadn’t really taken his eyes off Emil since he woke up. Well, since Emil managed to convince him he wasn’t some kind of weird troll and that all the spirits inhabiting his mind were safely quarantined inside, whether they liked it or not.

Tuuri was next to him, about to translate what Emil was saying to Finnish. Reynir was next to Mikkel, who would serve in the same capacity. Unlike Lalli, though, Reynir had been avoiding Emil’s eyes the entire evening. Probably still convinced Emil was a troll.

Eh, he’d get over it. 

“Um, I guess it started during the battle,” Emil took another sip of tea, “I honestly thought we weren’t going to make it, and Sigrun said to pray to the gods to let us see tomorrow. And I didn’t have any pride left to lose at that point, so… I prayed.”

“To whom?” Sigrun asked, “And more importantly: how? Please tell me you at least remembered what I taught you and did a better job than Braidy here.”

“Uh, I pretty much repeated what I heard you say when you prayed,” Emil admitted, “But that’s not what’s interesting. Apparently, at least one god actually  _ listened…” _

* * *

_ “Granted.” _

_ With Emil still pressed to her chest, Nanny threw out one arm in a grand sweep. Amongst the flashes of pink lights Emil could hear screaming, cries of the ghosts that had attacked him, slowly going quieter, replaced by- _

_...meowing? _

_ Emil dared to take a peek. _

_ He didn’t know how, but somehow he’d found himself in his old house, before the fire rendered it into nothing but ash. It looked like it always did in Emil’s memories, the evening the fire had started, except for one thing. _

_ Cats. Lots of them. Some young, some old, some very strangely deformed, and all of them transparent and glowing. _

_ “Are they… the ghosts?” he asked his Nanny. She stroked his hair gently. _

_ “Not really,” she said, but it wasn’t her voice. Her eyes were glowing pink when Emil looked up, “They are lost souls, ones who cannot pass over the river Gjoll. It’s only supposed to be impassable one way, but the poison they took cut them off from entering Helheim as well, instead of just leaving. Gjengangere, I suppose you could call them.” _

_ That wasn’t what Emil meant, but it was probably not an important question in the current situation. He squirmed out of not-Nanny’s arms and she let him. “What’s going on? Who are you really?” _

_ Not-Nanny smiled at him. “My, my, have you already forgotten? You are the one who asked me for help, and I couldn’t just ignore one of my favorites when they finally renounce their heathen ways in a most splendid battle.” _

_ Heathen ways? She sounded like- Wait a minute...  _

_ “You-” Emil stuttered, not really believing what he was about to say, “-you’re… Freya?” _

_ “Indeed I am,” she grinned widely, “And I’ll forgive you this time, since it  _ was  _ your first prayer, but when you invoke your God you invoke  _ only  _ them,” the grin did not seem so nice anymore, “Otherwise we get jealous.” _

_ “Right. Uh, got it,” Emil still had no idea what was happening, “Am I dead then?” _

_ “Of course not!” Freya waved a hand dismissively, “We still need to work on true faith, I see. That’s alright, you’ll get there.” _

_ “Um,” Emil was still confused. One of the cats pawed at his ankles. _

_ “You have asked to be able to see tomorrow,” Freya continued, “You cannot do that if you’re dead. Waking up will be something you have to do on your own, but you are still very much alive to do it.” _

_ “But,” Emil struggled to find the words, “How am I here then?” _

_ “You’re dreaming,” Freya said like it was obvious, “This is your area in the Dreamscape. The place where your soul goes when you fall asleep,” she eyed the cats milling around with pursed lips, “Though, since you are not a mage, it lays below the Dreamsea. That might be a problem.” _

_ “It will?” Emil asked. The cat was getting more insistent, so Emil bent down to pick it up. It had three heads. Emil cradled it in his arms and started petting it anyways. It purred weird. _

_ “They might be smaller and tamer as cats, but they cannot stay here forever,” Freya pointed out, “But they cannot pass on, either. None of us, not I, not Hela nor Odin can take them like this, not when they can’t pass over the river or through the gates.” _

_ “Oh,” Emil understood exactly none of that. Well, he understood it was magic stuff, but that was about it. He’d ask Sigrun about it when he woke up. “So… What do I do with them?” _

_ Freya looked at him strangely. Well, she was looking at the three-headed cat he was still petting, but Emil got the feeling he was included in her considerations as well.  _

_ “For now, nothing. Things can still go according to plan,” Freya nodded decisively, then frowned in thought, “This is an unusual situation, to say the least. You are my creation, but you’re a boy in both body and mind, so it would be against protocol for me to give you my power. I’m stretching the terms of our agreement as it is. And the Allfather will  _ not _ be happy with me if I give you the duty he sent one of his own to fulfill.” _

_ “I understand all those words separately,” Emil said blithely. Freya laughed so hard she startled some of the cats. _

_ “Oh, you’re a delight, my dear,” she said, a huge grin still on her face, “Tell you what: I cannot make you a mage, but I can still give you a few useful tricks. So listen well: the boy with the red braid, his dog will find you. You must let it come in and lay before your hearth for three nights. When it is rested, you must let it out. It will show you how. Then you wait for the boy, and greet him warmly as well. When he trusts you, he will take you to the one who can open the gates of the Heavens. They will accept these souls for their own,” her expression gentled, “Until then, keep them here, and keep them warm. They have known nothing but the cold for a long time.” _

_ Emil nodded. It wouldn’t exactly be hard to get the fire in the stone fireplace going, and as long as Reynir’s dog didn’t antagonize the cats he had no problem with letting it stay here.  _

_ Wait.  _ Fire.  _ Emil turned to look out the window. _

_ The wildfire that had taken Östersund was still outside, getting closer. _

_ “Wait, and if I can’t wake up?” Emil asked, “Is the fire going to reach the house?” _

_ “It will,” Freya nodded, “But it needs to. If you try to start the fire in the hearth, you will see why.” _

_ That seemed like an odd thing to say. Nevertheless, Emil had heard enough about the gods from Sigrun to know that it was probably in his best interest to listen to the one currently in his kitchen. _

_ He took the matches in one of the drawers and knelt before the open fireplace. He had lit the fire in it a thousand times as a kid, fascinated with how the little lick of fire barely caught the dry branches at first and then devoured the thickest logs in a display of dancing flames. Nanny had used to shake her head at his antics and leave him to it, happy that he was at least occupied and that it was one less chore for her to do. _

_ But now, in this dream, he could not produce a single spark.  _

_ “Do you see?” Freya knelt next to him, “You cannot make fire of your own until you’ve tamed the fire outside.” _

_ “That doesn’t make any sense,” Emil protested, “I thought this was my dream!” _

_ “It is,” Freya nodded, “And the fire outside is not the fire that destroyed your home, but your memory of it. You keep seeing it as something that happened to you, something you had no control over.” _

_ “It’s a wildfire, or course I didn’t control it!” _

_ “Not the real fire, no,” Freya raised an eyebrow at him. The expression reminded him of the one Sigrun made when she thought he was being particularly slow. “But the fire outside right now is a memory, like I’ve already told you. You did not fear the fire, even when it took everything from you, but you resented it. Don’t. Make it your own. Take it, and put it in your hearth. Then you will have tamed it, and changed it just as much as it has changed you. But if you leave it to rampage…” _

_ She didn’t need to finish. If he didn’t learn to control it, the fire would keep burning him. It was the first thing they learned in Cleanser training. Apparently, it applied in the dream world as well. _

_ “So, what? I just take the fire outside when it reaches the house and... carry it here?” he waved a hand at the empty fireplace. _

_ “You make it sound easy,” Freya tucked a stray piece of his hair behind his ear, “It will not happen in one night. You cannot use anything but your own self to carry it. It will burn your hands. It will hurt, and it will keep hurting for as long as there is fire outside. But, in time, when you have transferred enough of it to your hearth, it will weaken, and burn less and less. One day, it may burn so low you don’t even notice it.” _

_ “I don’t suppose I can ask for some fireproof gloves, do I?” _

_ “It doesn’t work that way,” Freya smiled a bit sadly. _

_ “Yeah, I guessed,” Emil sighed, “And the ghost cats? Will they get burned?” _

_ “No. It may scare them, though,” her smile turned thoughtful, “And it is rather telling that you are worried about what will happen to them.” _

_ “Well,” Emil eyed the three-headed one uncomfortably. It was trying to get his attention again, so he pulled it onto his lap. “I guess… I mean, you said they’ve been suffering for so long. I know they, uh, came in here uninvited and all, but I would be pretty starved for company too if I was alone for ninety years. And I don’t really mind them being here, they’re a lot nicer like this,” he petted the cat again, and its purring attracted another two kittens to Emil, “I don’t want them to suffer even more than they already have.” _

_ For some reason, Freya looked…  _ proud  _ of him. It was an expression he’d been rather unused to seeing directed at him until Sigrun came along, and even then it wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. Emil was too clumsy for it to be, even though he thought he was improving. _

_ Freya cupped his cheek gently and turned his face to hers. _

_ “Emil,” she sounded solemn, “The next time you encounter one of the Draugr, one of the trolls, what will you do?” _

_ “Uh, try to stay alive,” Emil said, thinking that was a painfully obvious answer, “Put it out of his misery, if possible.” _

_ “And if I told you you could invite them in?” she nodded towards the ghost cats milling around, “Not all of them are ghosts, as you called them. Some are the trolls that got swept up in the battle. When I leave I can take them with me, but only the ones who are already here. If you encounter any more, would you bring them in?” _

_ Emil was stumped. How the hell was he supposed to do that? _

_ “They will feel the fire in your hearth,” Freya explained without being asked, “And they will come to you, but will not harm you. If you bring them in, they will take the shape of cats and pass into the Afterlife through the hearth.” _

_ “Okay, but… Isn’t that what mages do?” Emil was pretty sure that was what Lalli did with the dog beast, “Help souls pass into the Afterlife.” _

_ “You're thinking of the wrong mages. Mine and Odin’s rarely have that ability, for it was not one we had thought to give them,” Freya corrected him, “If a creature dies in battle, they are collected by Valkyries, but if they don’t, they have to find their own way to Hel. In the case of these poor souls, they can’t even do that. Someone needs to do it, needs to guide them,” Freya took one of the ghost kittens from Emil and petted it, “There are few who could, and even fewer who would. You have proven to have a kind and open heart, and you are in the perfect position for it. This is not something I would ordinarily ask of a mere mortal, but I feel I need to ask anyway: will you be the Guide of abandoned souls?”  _

_ Freya looked so solemn and serious, like she was asking for some terrible hardship from Emil. Emil bit his cheek. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it? “What would being a Guide mean?”  _

_ “There are many lost souls in this world, more than those who wander with clear eyes,” Freya told him, still strangely serious, “In the old times, when they were fewer and mages were more, a Guide of lost souls wasn’t needed. They would wander home eventually, we thought. But the times have changed. We need Guides of lost souls, but it is hard to pick them, even on the off chance they’d be willing.” _

_ “Why not?” Emils asked, “Is being a Guide… bad, somehow?” _

_ “Not really,” Freya sighed, “But it is far from a glorious purpose. It is hard and constant work, and you will not be recognised for it in your own Afterlife. Whether you go to Fólkwangr with me, or to Hela’s realm, that will be decided upon your death alone. It is a lot done for others, but no reward for yourself.” _

_ Emil thought about it a little. “So… It’s a lot like Aunt Siv’s job.” _

_ Freya frowned, looking lost. Emil hurried to explain. _

_ “Ah, my aunt Siv, she’s a doctor. She works with- Well, used to work, she quit to organise our expedition, for the government to develop a cure or a vaccine for the Rash. She’s been working on it for ten years, and has made almost no progress. I remember my father once asked her why she was doing it, since she hadn’t needed the money back then, and it was unlikely to make her famous. She said she did it because it had to be done, for the good of humanity. Even if she did not find the cure, or it was found long after her death, whoever does find it will have an easier time if they didn’t have to start from scratch,” Emil tilted his head in thought. The three-headed cat pawed at his chin. “So the work she was doing  _ was  _ important, and that was the only reason she needed to do it, even if she won’t be awarded for it.” _

_ Freya stayed silent for so long Emil almost thought she had left. But no, she was still next to him, still looking at him with that strange look on her face that Emil couldn’t name. _

_ “So, uh,” Emil squirmed, “If you need a Guide, I guess I can be one. I mean, until recently I didn’t even know there was an Afterlife, so…” Emil let out a tiny breathless laugh, “I guess I’ll just have to settle for being a famous explorer of the Silent World in this life, and let Sigrun worry about my Afterlife.” _

_ Freya blinked at him, looking like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then the biggest grin he had ever seen on anyone, including Sigrun, split her face. It was so bright,  _ literally,  _ that Emil had to cover his eyes or be blinded by a flash of pink light. _

_ When he lowered his hand, he stared with his mouth hanging open. _

_ Up until that moment, Freya looked like his Nanny. Now, she stood taller than Sigrun but equally muscled, in a strange, elaborate leather and silver armor. Her strangely catlike eyes were still glowing pink, but her face was clear and unlined, her cheekbones so sharp she could have given Lalli a run for his money. Her hair was long and golden, flowing in the nonexistent wind, glossy and shiny in the way that would take Emil at least two hours and some very expensive products to achieve. It was, somewhat bizarrely, the exact same color as his. _

_ In short, she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. _

_ And she was still grinning at him. _

_ “Emil Västerström,” her voice thundered throughout the house, “Few of my creations have surprised me like you have, and even fewer did it so pleasantly! You have accepted the task I have given you, and did so with grace! It merits a reward, I say! For the duty you have taken upon your shoulders, I shall give you three gifts. Use them well.” _

_ Before Emil could even begin to wrap his head around that speech, Freya drew a fiery rune over Emils’ heart. It felt like a molten hot knife stabbing him in the chest, but the pain only lasted a second. She then took Emil’s face in her hands, laid a gentle kiss on his forehead, and that same warmth suffused his entire face in a blushing wave. She leaned away to look at him, but did not let go. Her Sigrun-like grin had not slipped for a moment. _

_ Then she surged forward again, and planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips.  _

_ So it turned out that Emil’s face could, in fact, get even redder. _

_ Freya, if anything, looked even more delighted. “Now, my darling, you have some preparations to do for the journey ahead of you. And I must go speak with the Allfather. He will try to meddle as he always does, but on this matter he will yield to me. He knows it is both necessary, and that it is a bad idea to make me cross with him.” _

_ “O-okay?” Emil stuttered. What the hell else was he supposed to say? _

_ Freya patted his cheek affectionately, stepped back, and disappeared as she had come, in a wave of pink light, leaving nothing but the memory of his Nanny behind.  _

_ Emil looked down at the three-headed cat he was still holding. Even though he was clutching it to his chest hard enough that a normal cat would be squirming in protest, the former ghost was perfectly placid and happy to be there. _

_ Emil wished he could say the same. “What the hell did I just get myself into?” _

_ He could have sworn the cat shrugged. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like it? This was one of the two scenes I vividly remember from my dream. Not sure I managed to portray it as well as I would have liked, but eh. This is a low effort fic, and I got the point across, I think.  
> The next chapter features the last scene from my dream, and the last part of the outline. After that, we're flying blind. Well, I'm still writing the outline based on what I'd like it to end like, but it's no longer dream-authentic.
> 
> 'Gjenganger' was, in old Norse, a kind of a ghost, or a wraith. Sources disagree whether they were corporeal or not, but it's the closest I managed to find that describes the SSSS ghosts. Draugr is also another word revenants, or zombies. Basically things that come back from the grave, but in their original bodies, albeit mangled. That's the trolls, beasties and giants.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run, Reynir, run! To your damnation or your salvation, you will find out only when you are too deep to get out.

Emil unintentionally cut himself off with a jaw-splitting yawn.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he rubbed at his eye, “I’m just… really tired.”

“No kidding,” Sigrun said, her eyebrows almost touching her hairline, “Here we thought you’ve been having a catnap, and you were talking to a Goddess! Hell, I can’t even blame you for screaming your head off, considering the company you were keeping in it!”

“Huh? What screaming?”

“You don’t know?” Sigrun asked, “Every night, just after sundown, you’d start yelling like you were being murdered, and got a fever so high Mikkel was worried your brain was gonna start melting out of your ears.”

Ah. That. 

“It wasn’t because of… any visitors,” Emil rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm, “It’s because of the fire. When Freya said I’d have to carry the fire from Östersund to the fireplace with my bare hands, she was being literal. It, uh, isn’t very pleasant, even if it is a dream.”

It really wasn’t, but it was the trigger to resetting the Dreamspace. Emil had to wait at the window for the fire to reach the house, then literally gather it into his hands like he was scooping water from a well, and carefully carry it to rest on the logs of the hearth. 

Freya had been right: it _burned._ It hurt like he was holding both hands on the stove. It burned all the way from the window to the fireplace, a path which took much longer to walk than it realistically should have, and left him exhausted by the time it was done. 

But Emil had no choice but to do it. It was either that or the dream would burn, him along with it. Before, whenever the dream-memory of his home burning happened, Emil would have woken up well before the flames reached the house.

Now, that wasn’t an option. It was either burn his hands, or burn alive, and the ghost-cats with him. He didn’t know what would happen to him or them if Emil failed his duty, but he was determined not to find out either way.

He must have been staring at his hands for a moment too long, because the next thing he knew, Lalli was taking his hands and pulling him up. Mikkel was packing the stove away, the bowl already washed.

“I think it’s time to get some rest,” Mikkel told him, “Considering our most recent visitor, Sigrun is insisting we all move to the sleeping quarters. Safety in numbers and all that.”

Emil just nodded and let Lalli drag him into the tank. Sigrun and Tuuri were on the front seat, quietly discussing something. Reynir was there already, setting the bedding down.

He was still refusing to look at Emil.

Emil had a bad feeling about that.

But bad feeling or no, he was just so damn _tired._ He shed his boots and jacket and just crawled into his bunk, collapsing face-first onto the pillow.

Someone, probably Lalli, spread a blanket over him and patted his hair into some semblance of order. Emil tiredly gave him a thumbs-up.

He was asleep before the others even came in.

* * *

Reynir couldn’t sleep.

Everyone else had already dropped off, including Lalli. He had told, or rather gestured, Reynir to go find him in the dreamscape and then rolled under Tuuri’s bunk and fell asleep like nothing was wrong. 

Reynir wished he could believe it. He knew he should go seek Onni when he fell asleep, ask him for advice. Onni knew how to summon gods, he would know if Emil was really contacted by a goddess or just lying. At least, Reynir hoped he would. Onni had said he didn’t know much about the Scandinavian gods but they couldn’t be _that_ different from his own, could they?

And if Onni said Emil was lying, he would… Do what? 

Almost unbidden, his eyes strayed to the handgun Mikkel had handed Tuuri before the troll attack. Neither of them had thought of it when the troll broke through the floor, and with the recent events in everyone’s minds, nobody had thought to remove it from its hiding place under Emil’s bed.

Until now. 

Reynir didn’t know if he could do it. If Onni confirmed that Emil needed to die, Reynir was probably going to be the only one in the position to do it. That handgun had the potential to become very important in his future. 

_If_ Emil turned out to be a monster. I was still a tossup.

Reynir quietly groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. He was talking himself in circles. Every single course of action he could take started with him falling asleep. Something that seemed impossible at the moment. 

Someone put a hand on his forehead.

And Reynir, like a fool, lowered the blanket and looked up.

Violet eyes, glowing like twin moons on a starless sky, were looking straight at him.

Reynir froze.

“You are still afraid of me?” Emil asked in perfect, accentless Icelandic. He heaved a tired but long-suffering sigh. “I guess it’s my own fault. I knew the ‘prisoner’ thing was going to come back and bite me in the butt.”

“H-huh?”

Emil brushed Reynir’s bangs back. His fingers were strangely warm. “You dog has been waiting for you,” he said, “You should come get him.”

Reynir swallowed thickly. He’d already looked Emil in the eye, and he felt fine. Maybe it was worth the risk. “Where?”

Emil smiled faintly, looking relieved. “Just follow the smoke and you will find my house. If you like, you can even stay for cake.”

Before Reynir could ask, Emil’s hand covered his eyes.

When Reynir opened them again, he was on his boat on the Dreamsea. 

Well then. Step one complete? 

Now the problem was choosing step two.

He could get Onni. Onni had judged the Pastor Lady safe just by talking to her, he would know if Emil was safe as well.

Or he might just do to him what he tried to do to Reynir when he wandered into his forest the first time. If he thought Emil was a Kade, he probably wouldn’t wait for Emil to explain himself. If Emil fought back, it had a high chance of turning ugly very quickly.

Option two would be to get Lalli. A good idea if Emil was telling the truth, and a death sentence if he was lying. Either way, Lalli would be on Emil’s side, and not really much help in judging Emil's monstrosity level.

Option three would be to go alone, and see for himself. Judge for himself if Emil was still Emil or something that wanted to devour souls. 

It also meant his own judgement would be the only one he could consult.

Option four… Was better off not even considered.

Reynir sighed and looked around. In the distance, he could see a thin pillar of wispy smoke rising into the starry sky, disappearing into the heavens.

 _Just follow the smoke and you’ll find my house,_ Emil had said.

Reynir took a deep breath. He had never had to deal with these kind of decisions on his own, without even the advice of his siblings. Everything here depended on him making the right call, and he was forced to make it on his own. He didn’t know if he trusted himself to do it. 

But what else was he supposed to do? 

Abruptly, he remembered his father’s words.

 _The gods will test those they deem worthy of their attention,_ Reynir’s father had said, _If you pass their tests, you will be rewarded, either in this life or the next. If you fail, you will not be the only one damned._

And Onni’s.

_Tell me, Icelandic mage. These are your gods. What options have they given you?_

It got him thinking… Maybe Emil wasn’t the only one being tested.

They were right. He couldn’t keep relying on other people to make his decisions for him. These were his own gods. He had to prove himself worthy to win their favor. Reynir had been sent with a duty to fulfill. Sent in a crate because of a stupid and poorly executed decision, but sent all the same. The string of coincidences was too well-executed to be entirely unplanned.

...plus, he had to start sometime, didn’t he? Trusting himself?

Reynir hopped off the boat and started running in the direction of the smoke, passing by Lalli and Onni’s areas without stopping. 

He ran and ran and ran. He didn’t get tired in dreams, but it seemed to be taking forever, draining not his strength but his confidence. The Dreamsea seemed endlessly expansive, stretching into nothingness in all directions, the rising smoke serving as his only guide. His boat and his farm were far behind him now, Lalli’s swamp and Onni’s forest long gone out of his sight.

He was leaping into the unknown, following the smoke like his ancestors followed the North Star. 

Something huge and frightening moved under the surface of the sea. Reynir didn’t dare stop long enough to get a look at it. He had a gut-deep feeling that, if he did, he would be devoured. He kept running and running and running some more. His heart beat like it was a drum at a Midsummer celebration, and Reynir was a dancer around the bonfire, invoking the gods to grant him and his people the fortune to live another year.

This was a lot like that. A trial. Salvation or damnation. If this was a test, Reynir would find out if he was worthy at the end of the line.

So Reynir ran.

A raven cawed above him, following him on his path. The monster under the depths moved along with it, following Reynir as well. The waves started rolling in on the previously calm water, disturbed by the horrors within. 

Reynir ran, and didn’t look below him.

The waves splashed behind him, droplets turning into mist at the impacts. Something shrieked and screeched, had fought and been defeated. The raven croaked loudly from somewhere, an echoing call of triumph, getting fainter as Reynir got further away.

Reynir ran, and didn’t look behind him.

Something ran on either side of him, creatures similar to the wolf beast that had woken up Emil. Out the corner of his eye, Reynir could see golden eyes following him, running alongside him. Not attacking, not chasing. Following. As escort or as predators, Reynir didn’t know.

Reynir ran, and didn’t look beside him.

Reynir ran.

_And outran them all._

Was it just him, or did the smoke seem closer than it was a moment ago?

Reynir barely stopped in time to avoid hitting his nose on a brick chimney. He took a step back, panting, to better see what exactly he was looking at.

It was a sunken house. Below the water, it seemed elaborate and grand, with big windows and a balcony on one side, but the only parts above water were a portion of the roof and a smoking chimney.

Reynir didn’t understand. Was he supposed to dive down? How? Even if he wanted to he couldn’t go below the water. How was he supposed to get into the house? Down the chimney?

...He hoped he wasn’t supposed to go down the chimney. 

But… He could see something from the other side of the smoke.

Reynir took a few steps around.

Emil sat on the roof, legs stretched out so they were almost touching the water, crossed at the ankles. Reynir’s dog was next to him, with his head resting on Emil’s lap. Emil was idly petting it, looking at but not really seeing the endless horizon. He looked like he was dozing sitting up.

“Emil?” Reynir called cautiously, not looking Emil in the eyes just in case.

“I was starting to think you weren’t going to come,” Emil said, not turning towards Reynir. Dog sat up and happily barked, but did not leave Emil’s side. Reynir hoped that was a good sign.

“Sorry. I was running, but your area is really far away from mine,” Reynir wrung his hands, once again confronted with the question of ‘what now?’.

Emil solved that one for him. He stood up and walked along the roof to a small, latched trapdoor, standing just a few centimeters above the waterline. Reynir cautiously followed him.

“Come on in,” Emil waved a hand at the entrance as he opened it, “Just watch where you step.”

Reynir looked down. There was a stepladder right underneath it. As Reynir contemplated the best way to get down without breaking his neck, Dog simply bounced down the steps without missing a single one. He got to the floor in a second, then looked up at Reynir and barked. His tail was wagging.

“Okay,” Reynir mumbled. If Dog was so sure it was safe, then it probably was. He had a good sense for danger.

Reynir sneaked a glance at Emil, but it didn’t seem like he was planning anything nefarious. He seemed mostly tired, trying to hide a yawn behind his hand. Honestly, he looked a lot like Lalli did when Sigrun made him go looting with her barely an hour after he’d gotten back from scouting.

Dog barked again, waiting for him at the bottom.

Reynir started climbing down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news... Anyone else on Tumblr? Saw the mind-boggling amount of absurd stuff going on? Yeah, my ears are still smoking.
> 
> On the other hand, Biden won. Looking forward to seeing Trump dragged kicking and screaming out of the white house.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowza, I don't check my inbox for a week and I get flooded with lovely comments! I just want you to know that I love every single one of you. Here's a chapter in return. Go nuts with it, my preciousssss.

The house Emil brought him to was surprisingly warm and cozy, Reynir thought. And nicer than any other house Reynir had seen in his life, with elaborate drawings on the wall in strange patterns, and high ceilings. There was an electric light with glass dangling from it! 

That was Reynir’s first thought upon reaching the carpeted floors. The second was that Emil was definitely not lying when he said all the ghosts were turned to cats.

There must have been over a hundred of them! Whispy and transparent, obviously ghostly and deformed, but each and every one of them was recognisable as a cat. Reynir was swarmed by loudly meowing apparitions the moment his feet hit the floor. He could only stand there frozen, not sure how to deal with creatures that had wanted to kill and devour him only a few nights ago now wanting him to pet them.

“Shoo, give him some space! Duchess!” Emil came down after him, snapping his fingers for something.

A second later, a fluffy dog with curly, golden fur and soft, floppy ears came running from the hall, sending the cats scrambling. Only the one with three heads remained no matter how much the dog barked, and Emil bent down to pick it up himself.

“Sorry about that,” he looked at Reynir apologetically, petting the weird cat in his arms, “This one’s really clingy for some reason. Anyway, the kitchen’s this way.”

Emil led the way and Reynir cautiously followed. His eyes kept straying to the other dog, trotting along next to Dog. 

“Is that your Fylgja?” Reynir asked.

“My what?” Emil turned around incredulously, then looked where Reynir was pointing at the golden dog, “Oh, that’s Duchess. She was a dog my mother had when I was a kid, but she passed away from old age years ago. Guess she’s another memory, like Nanny.”

Reynir didn’t really know enough about… any of this to really tell if she was. Reynir did have sheep in his Dreamspace, so it was possible that Emil was right. But as far as he knew there weren’t supposed to be other people in your Dreamspace at all, memory or no memory, but he didn’t know enough to tell if it was impossible or just unusual. Or wrong.

Maybe he really should have brought Onni with him...

“Nanny!” Emil called as they entered the kitchen, “My friend is here, he might stay the night! Father already said it’s alright!”

“That’s wonderful, Emil!” a plump, elderly woman with curly hair and kind eyes clapped her hands in delight, “Would your friend like some refreshments? Some cake?”

“Uh,” Reynir wrung the end of his braid in his hands, not quite daring to look her in the eyes either, for entirely different reasons.

“He’ll have some strawberry-cream cake,” Emil made the decision for him. Reynir watched him walk over to the fireplace and lower the cat on the cushion in front of it with a dozen others. Dog and Duchess quickly joined them, curling up around each other and settling in to nap.

Reynir hesitantly shuffled over to the cuddle pile, curious. The fire in the hearth was blazing, radiating warmth Reynir hadn’t felt since before he started the journey to the Silent World. Almost against his will, Reynir held his hands in front of the fire, enjoying the feeling of lassitude that had suddenly overtaken him. The dogs had the right of it. It didn’t sound like a bad idea to lie down for a minute and rest, just for a moment, it was so nice and it felt safe-

Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him back to his feet so hard Reynir stumbled into their arms.

“ _ Don’t _ ,” Emil sounded odd, somewhere between frightened and stern, “ _ No living creature may come to the hearth before their time _ .”

Reynir could see his eyes were glowing purple again. He swallowed compulsively. “W-why?”

Emil blinked and his eyes were back to their normal blue. He seemed… confused. 

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, “I just… Saw you getting closer to the fire and somehow knew that you shouldn’t,” he sighed and ran a hand down his face, “I’m still getting used to this whole ‘Guide’ thing. If only it came with a damn manual or something.”

Having only recently discovered he was a mage himself, Reynir could certainly sympathise. He patted Emil on the shoulder like he’d seen Lalli do, hoping to convey the ‘I know  _ exactly  _ how you feel’ sentiment. Emil looked at him weird for it.

“Come on,” Emil nodded towards the dining table, “Never let it be said I promised cake and failed to deliver.”

Reynir was sat down at the table and was promptly presented with a generous slice of sweet smelling biscuit and cream cake. He wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with strawberries, living in Iceland, but he’d never seen them get so big. He speared one with his fork, scooped up some cream, and bit into it.

“Mmmm! This is delicious!” He told Emil.

“Well, after Mikkel’s cooking even dream food is bound to be delicious,” Emil pointed out while Reynir continued to shove cake into his mouth, “There’s more if you want.”

Reynir very much did. Emil’s Nanny left the entire platter with cake on the table and invited Reynir to help himself. 

Well, if a Goddess was ordering him to, Reynir couldn’t exactly refuse.

“You really grew up like this?” Reynir asked past a mouthful of cake, this time chocolate. Reynir had only tried it once before in his life, when Guđrun’s boyfriend brought her some. He knew there were greenhouses in southern Iceland that grew some rather exotic fruits, including chocolate, but it was ten times more expensive than coffee, which by itself wasn’t cheap either and reserved almost solely for the military.

“Until I was sixteen, yeah,” Emil shrugged at Reynir’s previous question. He wasn’t eating anything, even though there was some delicious looking food in front of him. Instead, he was looking at the cuddle-pile by the fireplace. “Then the entire town burned down and my family lost everything they owned.”

Reynir froze with another forkful of cake halfway to his mouth. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Emil rolled his eyes, “It happened years ago, and I’m currently in the middle of a crash course in dealing with it,” he waved a hand at the blazing fireplace and Reynir abruptly remembered what Mikkel had said that evening.

“ _ A lot of the trauma we suffer is processed subconsciously,” _ Mikkel explained once Emil was done talking, “ _ Everyone processes it differently, and it seems to me that Emil has visualised it as ‘taming’ his fire. It would explain the temperature and hallucinations as well. Hopefully he won’t actually hurt himself before he’s done.” _

“Did- Did Freya say when you would be done?” Reynir asked hesitantly. 

“Not really,” Emil sighed, looking at his hands, “Just that at some point it will stop burning so badly.”

“Can I help?” Reynir asked reflexively, “Somehow?”

“Maybe?” Emil shrugged, “I don’t know, Freya just said that you were supposed to come in here at some point and lead me to someone who would know to ‘open the gates of Heavens’, whatever that means-”

“The Pastor Lady!” Reynir jumped up, sending the cat that had designs on his cake scrambling, “That’s what she meant! I need to take you to her temple!”

“Er, okay?” Emil looked bewildered by Reynir’s exclamation, clutching one of the cats to his chest like a shield, “Wait, now?”

“Okay!” Reynir grabbed Emil’s hand and pulled him towards the hall. “Thanks for the cake!” he yelled back at Freya.

Emil stumbled after him, trying to splutter out a protest, but Reynir didn’t grow up with four older siblings for nothing. He expertly dragged Emil to the stepladder and started climbing.

“Come on!” Reynir called, waving a hand for emphasis. 

Emil was still at the bottom, hesitating. Dog went past him up the steps and joined Reynir on the roof with a single dexterous jump.

“Uh, right,” Emil turned to Duchess, “You stay here, keep the cats in line. I’ll come back soon, okay?”

“Okay!” Duchess yipped, tail wagging. Emil patted her head then started climbing. Halfway up he froze and turned around abruptly.

“Wait, what?!” he squeaked, but Duchess was already gone.

“Oh, so she is your Fylgja!” Reynir grinned, “They talk sometimes when they want to tell you something important.”

“That’s not as comforting as you seem to think!” Emil growled and started climbing again, “I don’t even know what a ‘Fylgja’ is!”

“You don’t? Really?”

“I’m Swedish!” Emil groaned as he hauled himself out the trapdoor, “I didn’t even believe in magic and ghosts until they almost killed me! They don’t really teach you this stuff in public school either!”

“Oh,” Reynir helped him up, “They’re companions spirits the gods give every person when they are born. They take shape of all kinds of animals. Kinda cool that ours are both dogs, isn’t it?”

“Marvelous,” Emil bit out and slammed the trapdoor shut, “Now what?”

“We need to go see the Pastor Lady. Her temple is…” Reynir squinted at the horizon. It was very faint, but he was pretty sure it was- “that way.”

“You’re pointing at nothing,” Emil crossed his arms, “And how are we supposed to get there anyway? Swim?”

“Nope, we just walk on water, see?” Reynir stepped out onto sea, spreading his arms like it was a show, “All Icelandic mages can do that. Don’t worry, you don’t have to think about it or anything, even if you fall down you won’t sink.”

Emil watched Reynir dance around on the water with a pained expression on his face. “This entire place makes less and less sense by the damn minute,” he said, but he was gamely walking down the roof. “And I’m not actually a mage. Freya said she wasn’t allowed to make me one.”

“Huh?!” Reynir froze, eyes on Emil’s leg hovering over the water, right over the deep end, “Wait!”

Too late. Emil’s foot fell down… And then the other. Both of them creating small ripples on the surface without sinking.

“Huh,” Emil looked down at his feet, “Feels like walking on a wet carpet.”

Reynir discreetly breathed a sigh of relief. For a minute there he thought Emil was going to sink like Lalli. Reynir imagined he would not have reacted well to that when Reynir just assured him it wouldn’t happen.

“I guess we better get started,” Emil walked past Reynir, “We don’t actually have all night, and I’d rather not end up stranded in the middle of the sea when it’s time to wake up.”

“Don’t worry,” Reynir jogged to keep up with him, “When you wake up you kinda start fading until you disappear, and the next time you fall asleep you end up back in your Dreamspace. It happened to me when I first came to Onni’s area.”

“Who’s Onni?” Emil asked.

“You don’t know? He’s Tuuri’s older brother. He’s with Mikkel on the radio sometimes, when Tuuri’s busy.”

“Oh,” Emil scratched his temple with a frown, “Yeah, Tuuri did talk about him. I just forgot what his name- Wait, you said you went to his Dreamspace?”

“Well, yeah,” Reynir nodded, “He’s a mage too, like Lalli.”

“You went to Lalli’s Dreamspace?” Emil’s eyes were as wide as saucers, “And you could talk to him? Like we’re talking now?”

“Yeah,” Reynir tilted his head, “But I thought you can talk to him in the real world now. You know, with the whole ‘eyes glowing and everybody understanding me’ thing?”

Emil looked nervous. He wrapped his arms around his torso and looked away. “Just because I  _ can  _ do it doesn’t mean I know  _ how.  _ It’s kinda like how I knew you shouldn’t come too close to the fireplace. It just…  _ happens.”  _ He punctuated the last word with a helpless shrug.

“I guess it’s similar to visions, then,” Reynir mused, “Those usually aren’t very pleasant either.”

“I guess,” Emil shrugged, “Are we going to get Lalli then? I don’t know about you, but I’d like at least one person who actually knows what he’s doing with us.”

“Sure!” Reynir agreed. Frankly, he was of the same mind, even though he would have preferred to get Onni. But that was probably a discussion that would go better without Emil there. It was best that Reynir and Lalli explained the situation to him first.

Not that he was telling Emil that. Not yet, anyway.

It was a long way back, but Reynir didn’t see any of the monsters that had chased him to Emil’s Dreamspace. There was something lurking in the depths of the Dreamsea, but it didn’t seem to notice them. Dog pranced ahead carelessly, too, so Reynir supposed they were safe for now. 

If only he knew why.

Emil started yawning at some point and lagging behind. Reynir waited until he caught up with them.

“You okay?” Reynir asked, “We’re not that far off anymore.”

“I’m fine, just tired.”

He looked tired as well. He’d been all but falling asleep when Reynir first got here, and now that the adrenaline rush was over he was back to almost nodding off even while standing.

Reynir had to keep him awake somehow. “So, uh…” he started conversationally, “When you said Freya told you she couldn’t make you a mage, what did she mean?”

“Why do you think I would know?” Emil grumbled, “Something about me being a boy, and it being against protocol.”

“Huh. They say that male mages are picked by Odin, and the female ones by Freya,” Reynir mused, “Though there are stories about those who are both. They say it happens when Odin and Freya fight over a single mage and are still undecided by the time the mage is born.”

“What happens to them afterwards?”

“I don’t know, actually,” Reynir shrugged, “I guess they have to decide for themselves which god they prefer, and if they’d like to be a boy or a girl. Or stay in between.”

“Well that way they get the patronage of both gods so I guess I can see the appeal,” Emil said, then sighed, “Not me, though. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be magical at all. I would have almost preferred it. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around this.”

“But,” Reynir turned around, “But if Freya hadn’t intervened, you would have died.”

“Yes, I am painfully aware of that fact,” Emil bit out, “I didn’t say I’m going back on our deal, just that I have no idea what my part in it even  _ is,”  _ he sighed again, sounding even more exhausted than before, “I hope this shepherd you’re taking me to actually knows something about… this.”

“She said she was a guide of lost souls when she was alive,” Reynir explained, “Which is pretty much what Freya made you, right? And I have been shown her temple in my visions, so the gods want us to visit her. Maybe she is supposed to teach you about being a guide, and I am supposed to bring you to her. The gods probably planned it like that, too.”

“Freya did mention there was some kind of plan in place for those ghosts,” Emil said, looking contemplatively at his footsteps, “She said I wasn’t part of those plans before, but that things can still go according to them.”

“See?” Reynir grinned, “The gods have a plan, and we just have to follow it!”

“I would have prefered if they just told us what that plan  _ is.” _

“We did figure it out on our own, though.”

“A confirmation we figured it out correctly, then,” Emil sighed, “Even Sigrun always makes sure her orders are clear.”

Reynir shrugged, not sure what he was supposed to say. He thought the gods had been as clear as they could be, considering they were speaking to mortals. Reynir had enough trouble communicating his visions to other people even when he could understand them perfectly. For gods, it must have been even harder, since they probably knew more than humans could even comprehend.

It was like the Pastor Lady said: the gods worked in mysterious ways, but they would not take their faithful astray. Maybe Emil would listen to her better than he listened to Reynir.

The horizon started shimmering, a few steps later manifesting as a flickering window into a swamp. Reynir grinned, walking faster with a spring in his step. Emil followed curiously.

Lalli was resting on his float, eyes closed and forehead creased in a frown. Reynir went to wake him up, but Emil stopped him.

“What is it?” Reynir asked.

“Let me,” Emil said, looking straight at Lalli. He took a cautious step closer, then another, and another. Reynir stayed where he was, watching them curiously.

Emil stopped just before the plank that led to the float. He stood there for almost a full minute, quiet enough that Lalli didn’t stir. He hadn’t even noticed them come.

Emil knelt down and sat back on his heels. Reynir got the feeling he was nervous.

“Hello, Lalli,” Emil said.

Lalli’s eyes snapped open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed the amount of final chapters has changed. I did some math, am all of the chapters usually end up being about 2k-3k, so that meant I would either have to make longer chapters, or increase the final count. I'm still eyeballing the amount a bit, but 20 should at least be in the right ballpark.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly Lalli calling everything stupid and dealing with, mrrr, _feelings._ Plot resumes after this.

Lalli had waited outside his area for over an hour by the time he realized Reynir wasn’t coming.

At first, he thought that something had prevented him from reaching Lalli. Maybe the Beast of the Dreamsea had finally noticed someone carelessly running over it, maybe he had gone to Onni first, maybe he had wandered in the direction of the other Kade’s lure, maybe-

Or maybe the stupid shepherd had trouble falling asleep again.

Lalli chose that as the likeliest answer and sighed in frustration at the stupid Icelander and his stupid missing not-Luonto. But there wasn’t much he could do about it here, so he returned to his area and slowly woke up to the familiar underside of Tuuri’s bunk.

He sought out Reynir in the complete darkness, allowing his eyes to glow with magic. His sight fell on Reynir’s red braid, and followed it up to his face, where-

Emil’s hand covered the Icelander’s eyes. Lalli followed the arm up to Emil’s face, resting on his other hand, eyes closed.

They were both asleep.

Lalli stared, frozen. If they were both asleep, why hadn’t Reynir come to get him already? 

And then… His stomach sank in his belly.

They were both asleep. Emil was a mage now, he slept above the Dreamsea. Reynir must have found him. They were together, dreaming.

They’d simply not come to get Lalli.

Some part of Lalli thought he should have expected it. He wasn’t of much help, being a half-trained Finnish mage. Reynir was stupid and knew nothing, but he could at least find Emil in the vast Dreamsea, whereas Lalli was stuck in his area. He couldn’t reach the Priestess on his own, he couldn’t reach the foreign gods Reynir and Emil answered to, he couldn’t even reach Onni on his own.

In short, he couldn’t help Emil. So why would they come get him, when he was useless to them?

Lalli resolutely ignored the way his throat wanted to close up and went back to sleep. He was fine, really. Why should he have expected any different, after all? They didn’t need him beyond finding the stupid temple. Just because Lalli had thought-

Well. It didn’t matter what Lalli had thought. He should have known better by now. At least, he should have known better after that time when he lost his Luonto and nobody had cared enough to notice he was finally awake. No one had even worried about him.

He turned around and went back to sleep. This was fine. Lalli had always been fine on his own, he was going to be fine now. And maybe Reynir would stop bothering Lalli with his stupidity now that he had another mage to be friends with. And he was sure Emil would appreciate someone who was going to reciprocate his friendship and clumsy but endearing attempts to communicate.

They didn’t need Lalli there. They didn’t need him for anything other than finding a route home, and certainly not for-

“Hello, Lalli.”

Lalli shot up like a startled cat, a banishing runo on the tip of his tongue, but all he saw was-

Emil, on the edge of Lalli’s float, smiling cautiously. Behind him, Reynir cheerfully waved.

“Reynir kidnapped me and is taking me to some weird pastor woman, possibly to sacrifice me,” Emil blurted out hurriedly, “Please help?”

“What?!” Reynir squawked like a squirrel that had been squeezed too hard, “I won’t- She’s not- Lalli! Tell him I’m not going to do that! Why would you think I’m going to do that?!”

“You just yelled something about a ‘pastor lady’ out of nowhere and dragged me out of my house! I wasn’t going to rule out the possibility!”

Lalli looked at them, the foreign idiots who had zero notion of personal areas, bickering like children over who started the fight, and he just couldn’t help it.

He laughed. It was quiet and hastily smothered into breathless chuckles, but it was laughter all the same. He wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because Emil leaning over him as he woke up and Reynir saying stupid nonsense was like a bad rendition of _that_ dream. Maybe because these two were the closest thing he could call friends and they were so _stupid_ that they were actually funny, even though that was a very dangerous thing to be in the Silent World. 

But here he was, laughing at them and their stupidity and from something dangerously close to relief.

By the time he was done, Emil and Reynir were pressed together and were looking at him like _he_ was possessed one.

“Please tell me you are seeing this too,” Reynir whimpered vaguely in Emil’s direction. 

“Lalli actually laughing?” Emil nodded, “Yep. You sure we’re not having a collective hallucination?”

“Maybe.”

Lalli rolled his eyes in their direction and hopped up. “You two are so stupid.” He paused by Emil’s side, suddenly unsure how to express the fluttering mix of feelings in his stomach. Emil still looked adorably befuddled and a little pink in the cheeks, which did not help the weird feeling in his stomach one bit.

“Hey, Lalli,” Emil smiled at him, “Uh, you okay?”

Lalli nodded. Then, because he had no idea what to do but was going to explode if he didn’t do _something,_ he pulled Emil closer by his cloak clasp and quickly rubbed his cheek against Emil’s. It made both the confusion and the blush on his face intensify.

Feelings expressed, Lalli schooled his face into his usual blank neutrality, and walked past them, where Reynir’s dog was waiting for them past the border of Lalli’s area. Somehow, Lalli was not surprised that the dog had more sense of propriety than its owner. “Reynir, take us to your priestess. It is about time we meet her.”

Realising he wasn’t being followed, he turned around at the edge of his area, one eyebrow raised. Emil and Reynir were still standing rooted to their spots, looking like lost puppies. Emil’s hand was still on his cheek. They looked at each other, clearly uncertain, but followed him nevertheless.

“Um, anyway,” Reynir paused right outside Lalli’s area, looking at the horizon with a stupid, squinty expression, “It feels like she’s this way.”

“Are you _sure_ you know what you’re doing?” Emil asked with an extremely skeptical expression on his face, which was somewhat negated by the lingering spots of red high on his cheeks and the fact that his eyes kept darting in Lalli’s direction.

“He doesn’t,” Lalli answered before Reynir could open his mouth, “He knows about as much magic as you do.”

“Great,” Emil sighed in defeat, “We are going to die. We are going to get eaten by some weird Dream Giant and Mikkel is going to have to explain to Sigrun that we’re dead even though our corpses are still breathing. Just marvelous.”

“It’s a distinct possibility,” Lalli nodded in agreement.

“Wow,” Reynir looked a little like a spooked rabbit, “I didn’t expect you two to be so… morbid.”

“We’re being realistic,” Lalli shrugged, “Well? Start walking.”

Reynir looked uncomfortably at the Dreamsea, eyes darting around both below the water and around the sky. Lalli wondered if he had actually seen something to make him so skittish all of a sudden, where before he pranced around without a care in the world. Lalli thought he should probably ask about that. Later.

Emil was more decisive. He shot Lalli a resigned look and stepped out onto the water. Like Reynir, he didn’t sink, and his footsteps created temporary but stable ripples that enabled Lalli to walk behind him. Lalli pushed Reynir forward, making him squawk again, then followed Emil.

As he walked, he took a moment to look at Emil. He was dressed similarly to Reynir, in a dark blue tunic with embroidered strips on the bottom edges and on the sash around his waist, but with black trousers and undersleeves, and leather boots. Lalli had never seen him in such an outfit, so he assumed they were mage robes for Icelandic mages.

The only glaring difference between Emil’s and Reynir’s clothes was the cape. Reaching the backs of his knees, Emil’s cape was pitch-black and fluttering in the nonexistent breeze. As he followed Emil, Lalli tried to discern whether the red embroidery designs on the back were supposed to be flowers or flames. Probably flames, knowing Emil, but they might also be the mark of the goddess that gave him his power. Lalli thought to ask, but in the end decided that Emil probably didn’t know either.

“Um, you don’t have to walk behind us, you know,” Emil turned around a few minutes into their journey, “Plenty of space here,” he waved a hand at the empty spot next to him.

Lalli would have liked that. Unfortunately, the stupid Icelander had forgotten to mention some important information. _Again._ “I can’t.”

“Uh, why?” Emil tilted his head. He had stopped walking, and thus creating places where Lalli could step, so he was forced to hop over to Reynir’s footsteps.

“I’ll sink,” Lalli admitted grumpily, “Finnish mages can’t walk on the Dreamsea. I can only walk by stepping where you step.”

“Oh,” Emil started walking again, seeming to notice that Lalli was following in his ripples for the first time, “Okay.”

“Hey, why do you think that is?” Reynir, as usual, had no sense of tact, “That we can walk on water and you can’t?”

“I don’t know!” Lalli hissed at him, “I’ve never met foreign mages before.”

“Would Onni know then?” Emil asked over his shoulder, “Reynir said he’s a mage too.”

“He doesn’t. He said it’s just a thing foreign mages do, but he’s never met any before either,” Lalli glared at Reynir, “Onni doesn’t even know how to keep _him_ out, even though Onni’s defenses are really strong. Mages aren’t supposed to be able to enter each other’s area without being let in, but those rules don’t seem to apply for him.”

“Oh, uh,” Reynir rubbed the back of his neck with an embarrassed smile, “Sorry. I didn’t realize there was visitation etiquette in dreams.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Lalli rolled his eyes, “Because you don’t know anything.”

“...Sorry,” Lalli’s head swiveled around at Emil’s plaintive apology. What? He didn’t mean Emil!

“This whole Guide thing kinda came out of nowhere, and Freya hadn’t really explained it very well. I’ve been trying to figure it out as I go, and Reynir said this shepherd we’re going to see was a Guide as well, so I was hoping she’d teach me a bit, but-”

Lalli listened to Emil’s anxious babbling for all of ten seconds before he tugged on his cape to stop him in his tracks. “I didn’t mean you.”

“Really?” Emil raised an eyebrow, “I thought that was kinda implied.”

“No,” Lalli sighed, “Nevermind.” 

Emil still didn’t look convinced but Lalli didn’t know what to tell him. When Lalli insulted Reynir, the stupid Icelander took it as well-natured ribbing, whether or not Lalli had meant it that way. Emil took it as a deep personal criticism.

“Aw, don’t take it personally!” Reynir hurried to reassure him, “Lalli was just teasing! He says things like that all the time but he’s not being mean, that’s just his way of giving advice. Right, Lalli?”

Reynir was looking at Lalli with a wide smile, Emil was looking at Reynir like he didn’t believe a word he was saying, and Lalli had a horrible sinking feeling that Reynir had just saved him in the most embarrassing way possible. _Again_.

Gods, who needed enemies when you have friends like these?

“...Yeah,” Lalli squeezed through his teeth, shoulders up around his ears and looking anywhere but at the two of them, “Just ask Tuuri.” 

The embarrassment was thankfully worth it, because Emil was smiling like the sun was shining from his face again.

“Ah. Guess I have a lot to learn about you now that we can talk,” he’d actually said that and _meant it,_ with that stupid smile and that stupid look in his eyes and Lalli was pretty sure his heart and his stomach were trying to switch places. 

_Just what kind of powers had his goddess given him?_

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Lalli stopped suddenly due to a terrible, sinking feeling in the pit of his gut.

“Reynir,” Lalli called, because Emil probably wouldn’t know, but Lalli needed to know rather urgently, “What is Freya the goddess of?”

Both Reynir and Emil turned to look at him, surprised that Lalli was asking. 

“Actually, I’d like to know too,” Emil confessed, “I haven’t actually thought to ask her at the time, and Sigrun didn’t say. Do you know?”

“Of course!” Reynir grinned, looking as pleased as a glutted cat that he actually knew something useful for once, “She is one of the gods of _Seiðr,_ along with Odin. Most of the mages receive their power from her. She is also the major goddess of war, which is why she answered Emil during the battle!”

Alright, the goddess of war and magic, that would certainly make sense. And it was a good thing, because a goddess of war wouldn’t give Emil any power he didn’t need, like-

“But she’s also the goddess of love and beauty!” Reynir continued cheerfully, “People often pray to her hoping their love would be returned! And she and her brother Freyr are considered the most beautiful of gods, and all the other gods and various _Jöntar_ wanted them for spouses.”

... _perkele. I was right._

On the one hand, it made sense that a goddess of love and beauty had chosen Emil as her favorite. On the other hand, Emil really, _really_ didn’t need any more of her blessings, not unless he wanted everything from humans to trolls falling in love at the sight of him.

Then Lalli remembered the wolf beast that had come into their camp, and cursed long and creatively under his breath. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emil's mage outfit is based on [this](http://sssscomic.com/mainimages/art/midsummer.jpg), from Minna's art site, but I changed the colors a bit.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this waiting in a vet clinic on my laptop, because my stupid, stupid dog doesn't know not to eat rotten trash on the street.

As it turned out, Reynir could talk the ear off a troll. And in the dream world, he didn’t strictly even need to breathe. Emil found that out by asking Reynir to tell him everything he knew about the gods, and then noticed Reynir hadn’t taken a single breath since he started ten minutes ago.

It was mostly fine. Emil wouldn’t have survived his cousins if he couldn’t listen and look interested with the best of them, and Reynir could hardly hold a candle to the terrible trio when they got started. The thing that smarted was that Reynir knew a lot of legends and stories about the gods, but very little useful information. Almost nothing, in fact, and he’d clearly given up around the time he started telling a story of how one of the gods, Thor, had to dress up as Freya to get his hammer back. While it  _ was  _ funny, it was distinctly unhelpful.

It went on like that the entire journey. At least it kept him awake, if nothing else.

“...so Loki transformed Idunn into a wallnut, so he could carry her as a falcon, and flew as fast as he could back to Asgard! But Thiazi came back from fishing then, and wanted to pay court to his new wife. When he saw her gone with a single falcon feather on the floor, he knew immediately it was Loki’s fault! He turned into a great eagle and gave chase! Loki flew ahead-”

Reynir stopped abruptly, both walking and talking. Lalli, who had clearly not been paying attention to him, nearly got a mouthful of Reynir’s braid.

“There!” Reynir pointed at a distant, glowing spot. Emil had to squint to see what he was talking about, but Lalli had no such problem. 

“The temple,” he nodded, “The priestess is there also. I can feel her.”

Emil… Could definitely feel  _ something,  _ but damned if he knew what it was. It was like a strange tingle in his chest, similar to what he felt when the wolf beast came into their camp and called out to him. 

Except he got the feeling that, whoever it was over there, wasn’t calling to him. It was just… there. Waiting, perhaps. What for, he had no idea.

Lalli pushed him forward, probably to remind him that he was running out of spots to stand on. Emil walked, sneaking a glance at Reynir. He didn’t seem concerned, but then again, Reynir had the common sense of a gnat. Emil was more optimistic about Reynir’s dog, though, and he seemed perfectly unconcerned.

A shimmering window materialised as if out of the mist before them, revealing a… church. 

“Huh,” Emil tilted his head, “This takes me back. We had one of those in Östersund.”

“Really?” Reynir asked, “I thought you said Swedes don’t believe in gods.”

“We don’t,” Emil shrugged, “It was mostly a tourist attraction. It held rows of displays with Old World artifacts, and every Sunday old people would tell stories about what life was like before. I used to go sometimes with one of my tutors before it, uh, was gone.”

“Oh,” Reynir said, “Yeah, it’s like that in Iceland as well. But don’t worry, you’ll like Old Lady Pastor. She’s really nice, and she’ll probably feed us cake too. And some weird soup in a cup.”

“You mean… tea?” Emil asked.

“Sure, that too!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Emil could see Lalli rolling his eyes. Oh, good, he wasn’t the only one who thought Reynir was being weird.

On the inside, the church was similar to the one from Emil’s youth, except instead of glass displays it held rows of wooden benches. In one of them, right in front of the altar was a woman, her hands clasped in front of her and her head bowed.

“Old Lady Pastor!” Reynir waved his hand like an overexcited dog would wag his tail, “I’m back! And I brought friends!”

“Reynir?” the woman turned around, looking pleasantly surprised to see him, “Well, do come in. And who might you be?”

The question was clearly addressed to Emil and Lalli. Lalli shot her a deeply distrustful look and made sure to stay well behind Reynir. Oh well, it wasn’t like Emil was unused to being the only one with any social graces to his name among this lot.

“My name is Emil,” he stepped forward with a pleasant smile, “And this is Lalli. I hope you forgive us for barging in here like this, but we are in need of your help.”

“My, how polite!” the old woman seemed delightfully surprised that at least one of her guests wasn’t raised by wolves, “And you are most welcome here! The doors to the house of God are always open to those in need.”

In short order, they were sat around a tea table in one of the side rooms with big windows. There was cake and coffee waiting for them and they were encouraged to help themselves. Lalli certainly didn’t wait, just grabbed the cake with his hand and started munching on it without bothering with the fork. Emil accepted a cup of coffee with another polite smile.

“Now,” the old pastor asked after a fortifying sip, “What can I help you with?”

“Remember those ghosts that were following us?” Reynir blurted out, “They, uh, they attacked us a few days ago.”

“Oh dear,” the old pastor lowered her cup, “Are any of you in need of my guidance then?”

“Yes,” Emil took over, “That would be me. You see, when we were attacked, the first ghost tried to possess me, and all the others followed. One of the gods, Freya, helped me…”

Emil tried to summarize the events of the past week, hoping he didn’t sound too much like a crazy person. To her credit, no matter how outlandish the tale sounded even to Emil, who had actually lived through it, the old pastor listened to him patiently. Reynir occasionally butted in when he thought Emil was leaving some important information out, leaving Emil to try and wrestle the tale back on track. Lalli just ate his cake and admired the architecture.

By the time they were finished, the old pastor had an unreadable expression on her face. After nearly a minute of silence, she heaved a sigh.

“I have to admit, this is not the kind of help I expected you to ask of me.”

Emil’s heart sank. “So you can’t help us?”

“I didn’t say that,” the old pastor corrected him, “I do not know yet. It was indeed my job to guide lost souls when I was alive, both living and dead. But I am not sure if I will be of use to you and your Pagan gods. I serve the Heavenly Father, and I have no intention of changing that. I do not know how to teach you to do what I do if you do not wish to convert.”

“But I think we were supposed to bring them to you,” Emil protested, “Freya said they couldn’t accept those ghosts because they took some kind of poison when they were alive, and it trapped them on Earth somehow. Before she made me a Guide, she said that I was supposed to bring them to someone who can open the gates of heavens, and that that god would accept them for their own. That’s supposed to be you, right?”

“Hmm,” the old pastor looked thoughtful, “Perhaps.”

“And your god will accept them?” Emil asked somewhat desperately.

“If they wish to go, yes,” the old pastor nodded, “My memory has grown faulty in the years since I died, but I remember not all of my charges were believers. Some denied god even in their death, but as long as they allowed themselves to be guided, I was able to help them pass on.”

“And you can still do it, right?” Emil asked.

“Of course.”

“Thank all the gods,” Emil breathed a sigh of relief, “We left them all at my house, if you would just come with us we can take you to them.”

“Ah, that might be a problem,” the old pastor smiled sadly.

“You can’t leave, can you?” Lalli spoke for the first time, looking at her shrewdly, “You are anchored to this place after all.”

“I am,” the old pastor nodded.

“They why couldn’t we find you the last time we were here?” Lalli asked insistently, “Your area was here, but it was empty. That shouldn’t happen ifyou were-” Lalli abruptly stopped. His eyes went wide and his shoulders tensed. He looked like he had just spotted a troll. 

“You are not a ghost, are you?” he asked quietly.

The old pastor smiled mildly. “Not quite.”

“Oh,” Reynir butted in, trying to diffuse the sudden tension “What are you then? If... you don’t mind us asking…?”

Neither the old pastor nor Lalli paid him any mind. They continued their stare-off without blinking. Lalli looked tense as a bowstring. Emil half expected his hair to puff up like Kitty’s fur when she sensed danger. The old pastor, on the other hand, was perfectly calm.

Reynir opened his mouth again, but Emil elbowed him in the ribs before he could get a word out. He didn’t understand what was going on either, but he knew enough not to butt in.

Finally, after a small eternity, Lalli gave a single unhappy nod. “Mrr.  _ Fine _ ,” he grumbled, then stood up “I’m going to look around, see if I can find something I can use to find this place.”

“That’s fine,” the old pastor nodded, apparently satisfied, “Feel free to roam around.”

For some reason, Lalli glared even harder at her. Emil wondered if he actually  _ should  _ ask what that was all about, but Lalli dashed off a second later. Reynir spluttered almost incoherently and ran off after him, yelling something about Lalli not breaking anything.

Emil was left with the old pastor.

“Oh, I apologise,” Emil said, “But I never got your name.”

“That’s alright,” the old pastor’s lip quirked, “I’m afraid I don’t remember it myself.”

“Oh,” Emil felt horrible, “I suppose that, after so much time-”

He didn’t really know how to finish that thought. What was he supposed to say to someone who had been dead and stranded in the same place for ninety years? Every other ghost that had met the same fate had gone mad and hateful. So how had she…?

“Excuse me for being rude,” Emil pressed his lips until they were white, “But how are you so…  _ normal?  _ I mean,” he spluttered a bit, “All the other ghosts were so… Angry and sad and- But you-”

The old pastor looked at him kindly, and for a moment, she reminded Emil of his nanny. “Oh, young man, your kindness does you credit. But you need not worry about me. Through my faith, I have been protected, and my mind preserved, if not my memory. The heavenly father takes care of his own, that has always held true. For all gods, as it turns out,” her smile turned a little bemused, “I must admit, I do not remember much about your gods, but if they had chosen you for such a task, then they must have as much faith in you as you have in them. And I assure you, that is no small thing.”

Emil squirmed. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m Swedish.”

The old pastor frowned in confusion. Right, he should probably explain. “Uh, I don’t know what things were like in the Old World, but generally, the Swedish do not believe in any gods. I’ve, ah, recently learned that doesn’t mean we are ignored by them, but…”

“Hmm,” the old pastor nodded as if she understood. Which was certainly an accomplishment, since Emil didn’t really understand it himself, “Yes, most of Scandinavia is largely atheistic, I remember that much. Or it was, I suppose,” she poured herself another cup of coffee, then offered some to Emil. He held up his cup in acceptance. “There is a story I do remember, that may be of use here. Tell me, Emil, do you believe atheists are created by god as well as their believers?”

Emil frowned at the non-sequitur. “I… guess?” he shrugged, “I mean, Reynir said they give everyone a Fylgja when they are born. I have one too, apparently, even though I didn’t believe in them until one literally appeared before me. So, yes?”

“Quite right. And why do you think that is?” she asked, “Why would god create someone who doesn’t believe in them?”

Emil had no idea, and he said so.

“Because an atheist is the purest example of human nature,” the old pastor smiled strangely, “When they are being kind, it is not because they expect rewards in the afterlife. When they stop themselves from hurting others in their anger, it is not because they fear divine punishment. They are their own moral compass, and they do what they believe is right regardless of what god has in mind for them. They simply do good because it is right, and god delights in those people as much as in any of his most devout. 

“And if they do return to faith at some point, they will never be turned away. We are all god’s children, and nothing makes parents happier than to see their children grown up, no longer needing them, and yet still coming to them for love and advice.”

Emil stayed silent, trying to work through the old pastor’s words. In light of her metaphor, he thought about his own parents and grimaced. Yeah, they probably weren’t a good example of the kind of parenting the old pastor was talking about.

But… Then he thought about Aunt Siv and Uncle Torbjörn, who had pretty much taken on the mantle of his parents after Emil’s father… couldn’t anymore. His mother died when he was still a kid, and his father had never really recovered from that. And when their fortunes were lost in the Östersund fire… 

That had been the end of him.

But Torbjörn and Siv had weathered it with far more grace, and they’d taken Emil under their wing no matter how much of a brat he had been. They’d been concerned but supportive when he decided to join the Cleansers, and never hesitated to invite him to their house when he was on leave. They’d been equal part worried about him and delighted when he accepted their offer to explore the Silent World, and always exchanged a few words with him over the radio, to make sure he was still in one piece.

“I guess you’re right,” Emil mused, “And you think Freya is like that too?”

“Well, I can’t speak for any other gods,” the old pastor reminded him pointedly, “But going purely from what you’ve told me, it is likely.”

“Are you sure you can’t teach me how to guide souls like you do?” Emil asked again, “Or at least show me? Freya said there are no other Guides now, that they haven’t made any since who knows when,” Emil’s shoulders slumped, “I don’t know who else to turn to.”

The old pastor looked regretful, but in the end sighed. “I’ll try. That is all I can promise you.”

“It’s more than I expected, honestly,” a breathless laugh left his lips, “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” the old pastor was smiling at him again, “And do have a little faith, young man. Your little friends will be able to find my parish, and this church. Then we’ll see what we can do,” she poured him another cup of coffee, “Until then, have some more coffee. That much I _can_ do, and you look like you need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the plot, with little bit of cross-religious exchange. The talk pastor Anne tells Emil is actually from Tales of Hasidim, but I first heard it from my religion teacher in high school, who was a catholic nun, so I figure a Protestant pastor would at least know it. I hope I managed to be respectful to all religions involved while keeping everyone in character, but let me know if I did something stupid unintentionally.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly about Mikkel and Sigrun, with a smidge of plot.

Reynir, Emil and Lalli were still sleeping, well past the point the rest of the crew was up and about.

Mikkel hoped it wouldn’t become a habit. 

Granted, there wasn’t much for them to do right now, stranded as they were, so Mikkel decided against bringing it up. But when they did inevitably resume their course they were going to have to start pulling their weight again. 

Also, the positions they fell asleep in were raising some eyebrows.

“I hope Emil hasn’t changed his mind all of a sudden,” Sigrun remarked, looking at Emil sleeping with his hand on Reynir’s forehead from Tuuri’s office chair, “Not that there's anything wrong with Freckles, he’s cute if you’re into that sort of thing. But I thought Pretty Boy had his heart set on Twigs.”

Mikkel handed her a bowl of breakfast porridge. “I don’t think so. Emil hasn’t struck me as fickle, not about this. It is more likely that they are having their own dream conference.”

Sigrun raised an eyebrow and smirked around her spoon. “Yeah, I can imagine how well that is going.”

“You don’t seem to have a lot of faith in the ability of our resident mages.”

“It’s not their abilities I doubt,” Sigrun rolled her eyes, “I just have a healthy level of escapism for Twigs’ ability not to pull out Freckles’ braid and beat him with it, and even less when there’s no real-world consequences.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘scepticism’,” Mikkel leaned against the doorframe with his own bowl, looking down at the boys, “And I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“You think Twigs wouldn’t do it?”

“Oh, absolutely, if Reynir annoyed him enough,” Mikkel shrugged, “But he won’t risk doing it if Emil could see, and it is safe to say that wherever they are, Emil is with them.”

“Bold of you to assume Loverboy wouldn’t hold Freckles down while Pipsqueak went full-feral wildcat on him, and not in the fun way.”

“H-hmm,” Mikkel smothered his chuckles into a spoonful of porridge. Once he was relatively certain it would stay down and not come back through his nose, he turned to Sigrun, “Thank you for that mental image, I shall carry it with me for the rest of my life.”

“You’re welcome!” Sigrun grinned. At this point, Mikkel wasn’t even sure if she was fucking with him or if she was truly imperivous to any and all kinds of sarcastic remarks. 

“Speaking of going full-feral wildcat,” Sigrun put her bowl aside and stretched languidly, “I’m about to be next if I don’t find something to do. Gods, either smite me properly or send me a troll so I can earn my seat in Valhalla.”

“I have no doubt you will find something interesting to do soon. I might even help,” Mikkel said mildly.

Sigrun, being Sigrun, took it the entirely wrong way. Her smile turned sly, and her look turned shrewd. “You offering to do it the fun way?”

For a moment, Mikkel was absolutely sure she was bluffing. He had thought he’d gotten a pretty good read on everyone on the team, and he hadn’t pegged Sigrun as the type to- well,  _ fraternize  _ while the mission was still underway. Or with someone she technically outranked.

“Isn’t this against protocol?” he asked, voice mild and amused.

“Our mission is over,” Sigrun pointed out, “Our objective was filled the moment we got orders to retreat. Plus, we’re off the clock right now. Might as well make the waiting part of ‘hurry up and wait’ a bit fun.”

She was serious.

Mikkel prided himself on being a calm and rational man no matter what kind of loops life threw at him. There were very, very few things that could render him speechless. It appeared Sigrun had just expanded that list.

“You are awfully sure I would be interested,” he managed to say without sounding strangled. Mostly. Eventually. After a false start or two.

Sigrun’s eyebrow shot up at that. “Mikkel, the day I don’t notice a man looking at me the way you do is the day I become troll food,” she shrugged, seeming completely nonchalant about it, “To be fair, you were more subtle than what I’m used to back home.”

Knowing what he knew of Norwgians, that probably wasn’t hard. But Mikkel had thought he’d been  _ actually  _ subtle. When a job was underway it was easy to switch his thinking of Sigrun as ‘the captain’ instead of simply ‘Sigrun’. But when he was cooking, or washing their uniforms, doing the dishes or cleaning, or any of the other million and one little tasks that needed to be done to keep the team comfortable, he let himself relax and let his mind and eye wander.

And sometimes, Sigrun took Emil out of the tank to ‘teach him how to be a kick-ass Viking’. It mostly involved shooting practice and hand-to-hand combat training, along with a steady stream of hunting wisdom. Most of said wisdom was even useful.

Emil lapped all of Sigrun’s attention and praise like he had been starving for it his whole life, so he had definitely not seen Mikkel shooting Sigrun appreciative glances, alternately admiring her grace, her sharpshooting, her skill with a dagger, her stories, her patience with Emil. Generally admiring Sigrun. And until that moment, he had thought she had been too preoccupied to notice.

Of all the things he could have misjudged about Sigrun, one of those being her powers of observation might have been the most stupid on his part.

“Guess that’s a no,” Sigrun sighed, when Mikkel had been quiet for too long, “Fair enough. I am still your commanding officer as long as this mission lasts, and I know some people have issues with that.”

She eyed him contemplatively for a moment. “ _ Is _ that the issue here? Or did I....,” she waved her fingers in a strange gesture. Mikkel assumed she meant ‘misunderstood the situation’, but he had just learned his lesson about assuming anything with Sigrun.

Well. Either way, Mikkel had not made it this far in the world by balking at a challenge. 

“You are right in thinking I would be interested,” he admitted cautiously, “And the fact that you are my captain  _ is  _ a concern. But if we were to start something of that nature, I would prefer it to be an actual relationship. Not just stress relief.”

Sigrun seemed surprised at that. “Well, yeah! If it was just stress relief I could have taken care of that myself. C’mon Big Guy, I thought you were smarter than that!” 

“It has recently come to my attention that you are more than capable of shooting my assumptions clear out of the water,” Mikkel smiled, “I thought it would be prudent to check.”

“That’s that then,” Sigrun nodded, clearly satisfied with herself, and leaned back with her hands behind her head, “When we get back to civilization and get our money, I’m taking you on a date! With real, actual food, because I’m never letting you cook again unless I’m literally starving.”

“Something to look forward to, then,” Mikkel agreed. Sigrun grinned.

And maybe there really was something to this whole gods business, because right at that moment the most beautiful sounds of an engine starting to roar reached their ears.

Tuuri came running in a moment later, looking wild-eyed and a little manic, but otherwise absolutely ecstatic. “I- I did it! I am  _ amazing!” _

“Holly shit, you sure are!” Sigrun leapt to her feet in astonishment. A moment later she was grinning from ear to ear. “That’s the best sound I heard all week! High five!”

Tuuri enthusiastically tried to slap Sigrun’s hand, ended up missing and slapping Sigrun’s face, then melted into remorse and apologies. Mikkel wondered just how much sleep  _ she  _ had been getting.

“Go take a nap,” Mikkel ordered, “At least two hours. I’ll drive in the meantime.”

“You can drive?” Tuuri sounded surprised.

“Well, I can press the gas pedal and shift into gear,” Mikkel admitted the extent of his driving abilities, “As long as I don’t have to steer too much I should be fine.”

Tuuri looked like she wanted to protest, vehemently, but exhaustion and protocol were keeping her quiet. She nearly toppled over when Sigrun slapped her back.

“Relax, Puffy-head,” Sigrun didn’t look the least bit concerned, “As long as his driving isn’t as bad as his cooking, we should at least not die until you’re ready to get back to the wheel. Go to sleep, that’s an order.”

Faced with two superiors giving her the same order, Tuuri nodded and dragged herself off to her bunk. She did a double-take at Emil and Reynir’s position, but ultimately decided she was too tired to be bothered right now. She toed off her boots and collapsed on her bunk fully clothed.

“Poor kid, she’s been working harder than the rest of us put together this past few days,” Sigrun remarked, sounding none too happy about it, “Some Captain I turned out to be,” she muttered under her breath.

Mikkel wasn’t surprised she was feeling a bit useless. It was obvious it had been bothering her for days now. “Under the current circumstances, no one could have asked for more.”

“You don’t need to try and make me feel be-”

“Everyone on the team is still alive and uninjured, including the unplanned civilian, thanks to you,” Mikkel cut her off, “The mission objective is complete despite less than ideal circumstances. I’ve seen much better funded and equipped missions fail, for one reason or another. You’ve kept this team together and going forward,” he gently pried her scratching fingers away from her wounded arm, “If you can keep doing that, I can keep us all functioning long enough to get us home.”

Sigrun side-eyed him, but Mikkel kept his expression steadfast. A moment later, a corner of her lip curled up: spirits lifted, but not entirely settled back into her usual confidence. “Alright, Big Guy, make good on your boasting. Let’s get this rust-bucket moving.”

Mikkel had very much not been boasting, but he had been sincere in his assessment of his driving skills. The path had been relatively straightforward, and once they found the right road the trip had gone almost smoothly. Mikkel kept both hands firmly on the wheel and granted the road much more focus than it probably deserved, but he had avoided a ditch and several ancient cars without even waking up anyone in the back, so he counted it as a success.

And then the motor exploded. 

“Well,” Sigrun coughed through the smoke, “It’s not actually a bad place to stop. Good work, soldier.”

Mikkel supposed he wasn’t the only one looking for silver linings.

“What’s going on!?” Reynir came running in his socks, pulling his mask on in a hurry, “Are we under attack?”

“No,” Mikkel assured him, “Just a vehicle malfunction. We’re about to stop for the night anyway.”

Instead of assuring him, the words made Reynir go pale. He shot towards the tank window and threw it open, then nearly ended up falling out when he shoved half his body out of it. Upon seeing the sun sufficiently far from the horizon he breathed a sigh of relief.

Mikkel put two and two together. “I assume Emil’s episodes are going to continue, then?”

“Yeah,” Reynir worried his braid between his hands, looking anxious, “We- We don’t know for how long. But he said it will get easier. Eventually.”

Mikkel nodded. He’d been expecting as much, though he had hoped otherwise. “You know where the supplies are.”

He patted Reynir on the back and went to try and get the radio working. Lalli passed him while nearly unhinging his jaw with the force of his yawn, followed by Tuuri and her power tools. Emil was distinctly absent.

“Just let him sleep,” Reynir told him when he asked, lugging the washtub outside, “Hopefully he’s  _ actually  _ sleeping, and not out on the Dreamsea somewhere. That could turn out  _ real bad. _ ”

Mikkel decided against asking, as he could not do anything about it. Reynir set the washtub by the tank and unhooked the hose, well familiar with how it worked after helping Mikkel with the laundry so many times. He filled it only halfway, then grabbed a bucket and went around collecting leftover snow around them. He dumped it into the tub then went back for more. 

“Huh,” Sigrun poked her head around the tank, still holding Tuuri’s toolbox, “Guess that’s how we’re doing it now.”

“So it seems,” Mikkel eyed Reynir doubtfully as he stole some of Tuuri’s report ink and drew tiny staves on each of the wooden boards comprising the washtub. Sigrun came closer to inspect his work, and she must have recognised at least some of Reynir’s drawings as she nodded approvingly and ruffled his hair. Reynir’s resulting smile was positively radiant.

It seemed Sigrun had gotten herself another admiring puppy follower. 

The sun had gone over halfway behind the horizon when Lalli disappeared into the tank and came out dragging a still disoriented Emil behind him. In a somewhat amusing display of role reversal, Lalli directed Emil to the bathtub and started pulling his clothes off. 

At that point they’d all seen Emil naked and completely out of it more times than they wanted to think about, so nobody even batted an eye at the display. Reynir obediently accepted the clothes Lalli was throwing at him, folding them on reflex. Sigrun came over and helped Emil into the icy water, not a moment too soon as it turned out.

“Aaaah,” Emil’s hands clutched at his hair the moment the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Well practiced by that point, Sigrun pried his fingers away and held his hands in hers to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. Lalli took a cup and started pouring water over Emil’s head, rhythmically chanting all the while. 

Emil didn’t scream this time, which was certainly an improvement. However, Mikkel could not honestly say he was much happier with the other changes.

His screams had become gasps of pain, but never turned louder than that. Instead, around nine minutes in, the snow in the tub had melted entirely. By the twelfth minute it started  _ steaming.  _ Lalli had long given up on pouring the tub water over his head and instead took to pressing snow to Emil’s forehead, continuously supplied by Reynir.

For some reason, nobody seemed concerned that Emil’s eyes were glowing a bright, almost fluorescent pink.

That was certainly never mentioned in the medical handbook.

This time, the sounds of pain tapered off at just under eighteen minutes. On minute 18, Emil gasped and simply slumped forward, releasing Sigrun’s hands.

“Damn,” Sigrun whistled as she shook out her hands, “Pretty Boy has a  _ grip.  _ I was afraid I was going to lose a finger or two by the end there.”

Considering everything Mikkel had seen so far tonight, he thought it prudent to check Sigrun’s fingers, especially on her injured arm. Emil was still awake and slowly gaining his coherency back, and was aided by both Lalli and Reynir, so Mikkel didn’t think he would begrudge him his lack of attention.

He took off Sigrun’s gloves and examined her fingers, accompanied by her slightly sarcastic remarks that she was actually joking. Her hands were a bit red in the areas where blood suddenly rushed back after being cut off, but were otherwise fine.

Sigrun’s gloves proved to be far more mysterious.

The white leather of the fingers had long lines of black across them. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it wasn’t because of the ink Reynir stole as Sigrun had assumed. 

They were burns. Like Sigrun had held something hot enough to turn the impregnated leather into charcoal.

The only thing she’d held were Emil’s hands. When Mikkel examined them, they were unburned.

Mikkel remembered the story Emil told, about having to carry wildfire with his bare hands, and worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been bothering me so much! I had a very clear scene about Mikkel and Sigrun becoming a 'thing' in my head, but it just refused to be put down on paper properly. So yeah, after literally two weeks of banging my head against the wall I threw in the towel. Enjoy!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaack! Sorry for the long wait, real life has not been kind lately. But on the other hand, this is the longest chapter yet! Hope that makes up for it.
> 
> Also the final number of chapters increased AGAIN because my brain keeps cramming ideas into this story and I am WEAK. So we get extra material that I had not planned AT ALL

Emil felt… fuzzy.

He was pretty sure someone had just dragged him out of the tub and shoved him into some clothes, only to sit him down and hand him a bowl of Mikkel’s porridge. But somehow, he had a feeling he was still dreaming. At least, that was the likeliest explanation for what he was seeing.

Because he was pretty sure that the last time he saw them, Lalli did not have glowing cat ears atop his head and Tuuri’s hair was a lot less pointy. He was also pretty sure Sigrun hadn’t recently adopted a piebald mare, and that a full grown bull hadn’t started following Mikkel around for no reason. He was even pretty sure they weren’t actually there, since he assumed they wouldn’t have been transparent if they were. Some kind of non-malicious Beast ghosts then? There were plenty of those to go around in the Silent World, so… maybe? Probably. 

But… He wasn’t actually sure at all.

Everything was… fuzzy.

Reynir’s glowing blue hand waved in front of his face. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned for Emil even though _he_ was the one glowing, “It’s just that… You haven’t said a word the entire evening, and your eyes are still- _purple._ Uh, can you even understand me right now? _”_

He could, so that gave credence to the assumption that this was a dream. For some reason, Reynir did not look all that reassured when Emil nodded at his question. Reynir’s dog was there too, wispy and transparent like Emil’s cats, resting his snout on Emil’s thigh like he was begging for scraps. Which was weird, since it couldn’t even eat real food. Or maybe he could? He seemed solid when Emil pet him, at least, but nobody else acted like he was there.

He wondered if the world was broken, or if it was just him.

“Did he get brain damage?” Sigrun asked, “I heard high temperature can literally boil your brains at some point. Mikkel, is that what happened?”

“I think it’s unlikely,” Mikkel told her calmly, for once not sounding like he was speaking around a potato, “His temperature has risen extremely high before and he has not suffered any ill aftereffects. The most likely explanation is,” Mikkel made a face, then quietly sighed in resignation, “Magic.”

“And the only mages we have are either the wrong type or totally untrained,” Sigrun slumped against Mikkel’s side, “Well, hopefully we can keep him alive until we get back to Iceland. There’s a whole school of magic over there, there must be someone who will know what happened to him.”

Something poked Emil’s cheek. He turned to see Lalli watching him with a squinty-eyed look, his cat ears flicking like he was deciding whether or not to pounce. It was awfully distracting.

“Can you understand me?” Lalli asked. His ears, like they knew they were being observed, had flattened back with suspicion.

“Yes,” Emil simply said. He understood him better than even in the Dreamworld. Much like an actual cat, Lalli said far more with his body than with his words, and now that he had actual cat ears, for some magical reason, Emil could read him like an open book. 

Right now he was clearly worried and unhappy, two things Emil did not want him to be. Impulsively, Emil reached up his hand, cupped one of those fuzzy, tufted ears, and gently stroked his thumb along its length.

That… was a mistake. 

Emil could tell almost as soon as he did it. Lalli’s eyes widened, pupils huge, his shoulders went up around his human ears and a full-body shiver went up along his spine so hard Emil could actually see it. 

Emil snatched his hand back. “I’m so sorry.”

“Wha- What did you do?!” Lalli stuttered out, blushing like a sunset. Oh gods, Emil had really screwed up, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry. It’s just- Your ears were looking droopy, and-” and Emil really wanted to slap himself. Just because Lalli reminded him of a big cat did not mean he would appreciate being treated like one!

“My _ears?”_ Lalli’s eyes, if possible, got even wider, and his hands went to the top of his head. Upon finding nothing, he went pale. “ _You can see my Luonto?!”_

Lalli said that like Emil had walked in on him with his hand down his pants. He had no idea what a Luonto was, but it was clearly yet another thing that Lalli considered private, and therefore none of Emil’s business. His cat ears, apparently a part of this Luonto thing, were pressed flat against his skull. Emil did his best not to look at them.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, because he was pretty sure it bore repeating, “I don’t know what that is. But, uh, I can see glowing cat ears atop your head, so if you meant that… Then yeah,” Emil was looking anywhere but Lalli. That patch of dirt over there was fascinating, really. “I’m so sorry.”

“Eeee!” Emil suddenly didn’t need to worry about not looking at Lalli, because his view was almost entirely blocked by an excited Tuuri, “It’s so weird to hear you speak Finnish! Well, I guess you’re not really, Reynir said he hears it as Icelandic, but still!” Tuuri was nearly vibrating with glee, “And you can see souls now! That’s so _cool!_ What do I look like?”

“Uh, spiky,” was the first thing Emil thought to blurt out. Then- “Wait, your soul?”

“Yeah, a Luonto is the third part of a soul, and also the guardian entity of a person,” Tuuri explained, “I don’t know if you have something similar, Onni said the Scandinavian gods made humans differently than ours.”

That… Was a lot to unpack, especially for someone who didn’t think souls even _existed_ until a week ago. Gods, he was so unqualified for this. Actually, Tuuri would have been seriously hard pressed to find someone _less_ qualified for this conversation than Emil! 

“Um, we have companion spirit animals. Reynir said they’re called Fylgjur,” Emil eventually said, “But I don’t know if they’re actually a part of our souls.”

But Luontos were. Oh gods, no wonder Lalli had freaked out. Seeing him naked was one thing, but literally seeing his bare soul was a whole different level of private.

“Eee!” Tuuri grinned, “Can you tell what mine is?”

...Or maybe not. Maybe that was just a Lalli thing. Or maybe a mage thing. Argh, who even knew at this point? _Certainly not Emil!_

“Um, maybe a hedgehog?” Emil guessed, profoundly uncomfortable with this conversation but not seeing a graceful way out, “There’s some kind of glow around you, and the edges look like hedgehog spikes.” 

“ _Wow!”_ Tuuri looked like she was seriously considering taking notes, “So you’re an actual mage now! Onni said only the really powerful ones can see souls, and it takes a lot of training! Even he has to meditate first, and he’s the best mage at Keuruu. It’s kinda weird you can suddenly just see them! You weren’t able to before, right?”

“Um, no.”

“I wonder why? Reynir didn’t know he was a mage until recently, maybe you aren’t born with magic powers? Finnish children know almost as soon as their milk teeth grow in, but our gods work differently from yours. And I know your mages are more rare even though there are a lot more of you, and it’s kind of an all-or-nothing deal. I mean, even I can use a simple cantrip, and I can’t even see omens! Oooh, maybe-”

“Tuuri,” Mikkel suddenly stopped her with a heavy hand on her shoulder. “It’s getting late. We need to go inside and Emil should rest. I’m sure you can continue your riveting conversation tomorrow.”

Emil took back every single mean thing he’d ever said about Mikkel. Tuuri’s enthusiasm was all well and appreciated on a good day, but Emil had been decidedly short on good days recently. Or good nights. He really, _really_ needed some decent sleep.

“Thanks,” Emil sighed. But before he could follow Tuuri to the tank Mikkel stopped him abruptly. He took Emil’s jaw in his hand and turned his face this way and that, a pensive look in his eyes.

“Is this another face-cancer thing?” Emil asked sarcastically.

“Well, if anyone could get face-cancer, it would probably be you, the way your luck has been going,” Mikkel released him, but didn’t look any happier about what he’d seen, “I thought it would be prudent to check.”

On second thought, Emil was keeping all of the mean things he’d said about Mikkel. He squirmed past the big Dane so fast Lalli would have been proud of him and made a beeline for his bunk.

As he went to sleep, he absently noticed Lalli pulling Reynir to the side.

“Onni,” Lalli told Reynir insistently, “Meidän on hankittava Onni.”

Reynir nodded and said something back. Before he fell asleep, Emil wondered why he couldn’t understand them anymore.

* * *

Onni was worried.

Granted, he was self-aware enough to admit that was pretty much his default state. For every situation he could possibly find himself in, chances were that Onni had already thought up at least a dozen ways it could go horribly wrong. For every situation _Tuuri_ ever wanted to get herself into, he could think up two dozen more. It had gotten to the point where his blood pressure skyrocketed every time Tuuri stared at the Keuruu walls for too long.

Onni’s boss had on more than one occasion said he needed to find a way to stop stressing out so much, like Onni had a damn _choice!_ If there was a way to turn off that particular feature of his brain, Onni would have taken it two decades ago! It sure would have made his life easier. But seeing as there wasn’t, he was stuck dealing with it on his own.

So yes, Onni worrying was very much not unusual. 

It _was_ unusual that he had to worry this much about _Lalli._

Lalli had always been a little odd. Then again, all mages were said to be ‘touched in the head’ in some way. That being able to comprehend the will of the gods and see the true forces that governed the world inevitably changed something in a mage’s mind, something ordinary people had but mages always lost when their power started manifesting. The price to pay for their abilities, they said, like the mages had a choice in that transaction.

Still, Lalli was a little more odd than even the average mage. As far as Onni was concerned, that was a good thing. It made him more predictable. Lalli liked routine, and quiet, and exploring the forest. He liked human company only in strictly measured doses. He strived to do his duty well, and once he reached a standard he set himself, he had no intentions of changing his methods. It made him more accurate than a fine-tuned clock, and equally predictable. Military life had suited Lalli just fine, unlike Tuuri.

Even back in Saimaa, when they were children, Onni had never had to worry about Lalli like he worried about Tuuri, because he could rest assured that even if Lalli got into trouble, he knew how to avoid danger and he would always be back when he got hungry.

If Tuuri hadn’t gotten it into her head to become an explorer and drag Lalli into Taru’s scheme, Lalli would have lived his entire life perfectly content to run through the Finnish forests and sleep inside the Keuruu walls, never even expanding his spell repertoire from what Ensi had taught him simply because he didn’t need anything more than what he had.

But that had changed now. _Now,_ Lalli had made a friend. 

And that friend was turning into a Kade.

Onni hated when history chose to repeat itself. Because that was pretty much what was happening here. An unaware mage, caught off guard, turned, and returned into the fold where it could do the most damage. The Hotakainen close to them trying to at least lead their soul to rest, and succumbing themselves. Then taking everyone else with them.

And Onni was, once again, in no position to do anything about it. The last time he was too young. This time, he was too weak, too far away. Helpless to stop it either way.

The only thing Onni could do was rest and gather his energy, and hope with all his heart that Lalli had been smarter than their grandmother and killed the Kade before it woke up.

Onni trusted Lalli, he did. He had faith in his abilities. 

Under normal circumstances. 

This was as far from normal as it could get. Onni had no idea how Lalli would react when pushed so far out of his comfort zone, and Onni had no way to reach him on his own.

Then there was Reynir. 

Onni had known Scandinavian gods were much different from his own, but everything he had seen of their methods so far made him even more grateful that he belonged to the forest. A non-immune shepherd boy, suddenly given powers and sent on an impossible quest? Onni’s first thought had been that his gods were punishing him for something, or maybe a generational curse had fallen to him, but no. That was apparently just how his gods operated. 

It made him even more anxious, thinking just what one of their mages would become when turned. 

And the time to neutralize him safely was running out.

Onni didn’t know how much time had passed since the last time Lalli had visited him, but he had a feeling it was at least a few days. He didn’t know how long it took to turn a mage into an entirely new Kade, but Hilja’s transformation had taken weeks. She had still been dangerous in the meantime, but easier to take out than a full Kade. Even if Lalli was uncertain about killing the first friend he ever made, he still had some room for error.

Or maybe Onni was fooling himself into thinking he had any measure of knowledge or control over the situation. There was so much Onni didn’t know, he actually had no idea how much he _didn’t_ know! It was making him even more anxious than usual. He had no idea what was going on in the Silent World, what Lalli had or hadn’t done. He could sense he and Tuuri were still alive, but that was about it. The only way to communicate they had was-

“Hi, Onni!” 

-currently doing his best to give Onni a heart attack.

“Oops, sorry!” Reynir picked him up from the forest floor, his hands nearly disappearing in Onni’s fluffed-up feathers, “I thought you saw us coming.”

Onni absolutely refused to curse in Lalli’s presence, who was just a step behind Reynir. That was the only thing preventing the idiotic shepherd boy from learning some words that didn’t exist in Icelandic for an extremely good reason.

“What do you want?” Onni grumped once he was safely back on his branch.

“Emil is awake,” Lalli told him curtly, “And he’s acting weird.”

_Oh. So that’s what it felt like to have your world ending._

“Onni?” Reynir’s voice sounded distant, “Onni? You okay? You don’t have to worry, Emil’s not a Kade. He says he’s not even an actual mage.”

Had he looked either of them straight in the eye recently? Reynir, perhaps, when the rude boy startled him and then stopped him from falling. Lalli usually avoided eye contact unless he was talking to someone familiar or unthreatening, but that didn’t mean much with Onni, who was both.

“He said the Goddess Freya made him a Guide. Like, someone who helps lost souls find their way to the afterlife. Oh, and we found Old Lady Pastor, she said she can help Emil with the ghosts, and maybe even teach him! She-”

“Give up,” Lalli ordered curtly, “He’s not listening.”

“But this is important!”

“When Onni gets like that, you have to wait for him to finish panicking first.”

“...oh. How long does that usually last?”

Lalli didn’t answer. Maybe they just left. Left Onni to his slow and steady doom. The three surviving Hotakainens would share the fate of their grandmother, for many of the same reasons. Oh, the irony. Oh, the humanity! It would not be theirs for much longer. And Onni hadn’t even said goodbye to Tuuri! They were both going to die, and their last interaction would be Onni yelling at her and calling her stupid for being brave enough to fulfill her dream! 

“Is… Is he crying?”

“Mm-hmm. He’ll stop eventually.”

“Shouldn’t we… Do something about that?”

“Everything Tuuri and I tried only makes it worse. What would you do?”

“Ummm…”

“Precisely. Leave him alone to calm down.”

And now Lalli had been taken by a Kade, and Tuuri would share the fate of their village, along with her team. Along with Lalli. If Onni was unfortunate enough, he would be alone, all alone in the world, no family at all left. No more Tuuri to tell him about something new she learned and found exciting. Lalli would never again come to him, tired from running through the forest, and quietly tuck himself into Onni’s side. Even if he ever dared to return to Keuruu now, it may as well be an island full of ghosts.

But… There is something strange about this setup.

“Wanna play Cat’s Cradle?”

“Cats don’t have cradles, stupid.”

“It’s just what the game is called. Here, this will do. See, you take a piece of string, tie it in a circle, twist it around your fingers like thiiiiis… So I hold it up and now you pinch here where the string forms double crosses, spread, and pull under. When I let go, you have a new formation held by your thumbs and index fingers. You think you can do it?”

“Mrrr.”

Onni was weak and defenseless. If the Kade wanted to do something to him, now was the prime opportunity.

But the actual Kade was nowhere to be seen, and Lalli and Reynir were playing with strings. They weren’t even looking in his direction. 

If they were trying to confuse him to get him to lower his guard, it was certainly working. 

“See how I did it? Now you need to hook these middle strings with your pinkies, spread them apart, put your thumb and index fingers _here,_ invert it like I showed you and hold.”

Lalli was looking at Reynir’s fingers, which were hopelessly tangled with string, and followed his instructions in a way that must have made sense to him. The result was that Reynir’s fingers were free, and now Lalli’s were trapped in the mess.

“Yes, exactly like that! You did great!” Reynir praised with far more elation than Onni thought the weird game merited, “At one point, the formations start to repeat if you do them all correctly, and then you try to do them faster and faster. Or if you mess it up but it’s still stable, it’s fun to try and figure out how to get it back to a familiar configuration.”

“Mrr,” Lalli grumbled, all of his attention on his tangled fingers, “What now?”

“Here, watch,” Reynir slowly twisted his fingers around the lower crossed sections, “See, now you do this one like I showed you, but you have to do it from underneath.”

Or maybe they’d already been corrupted by the Kade. Onni had trouble believing Lalli was not only tolerating Reynir for this long, but was actually following his instructions. Only some kind of supernatural force could make those two actually get along.

“Onni?” Lalli finally noticed they were being watched, “Are you done crying?”

Probably not, but he was in control of himself at the moment. “Yes.”

“Emil is awake, but he’s acting weird,” Lalli reported, eyes intently on the string game in his hands, “I think he’s growing more powerful.”

“Really?” Reynir interjected before Onni could start panicking again, “He mostly seemed confused to me. And lost.”

“He could see my Luonto,” Lalli said, “You can’t, even though you can sense souls over great distances in dreams.”

“I heard Emil say Luontos are similar to Fylgjur,” Reynir commented thoughtfully, “But something how they’re not a part of our souls? But Luontos are?”

“...Close enough,” Onni muttered, “Do you remember when I asked you, over the radio, if you could see the natural spirits and the forces of nature of our world?”

“Huh?” Reynir tilted his head, “Oh, yeah! When we were trying to figure out what those ghosts are!”

“Yes,” Onni sighed, remembering the lessons his grandmother imparted upon him, so long ago, “Some are easier to see than others. If they are loose, unanchored, they are easy to see and feel. If they inhabit simple creatures, like animals, it is still relatively easy to see their spirits, at least for mages of the forest. Trolls and Beasts… They are harder to perceive, but easier to feel, with all their rage and malice bleeding from them. Even you can feel them to some degree. But human souls are complex. Multi-faceted. Their power can rise or wane. Or hide. Sometimes they are as easy to see as an omen, or invisible to the point you have to wonder if they even have it.”

“Huh,” Reynir tilted his head like a confused puppy, “Okay, so seeing souls is usually hard but not impossible. So why is it such a big deal that Emil could see ours?”

“He touched mine,” Lalli said quietly. Onni froze.

_“What?”_

“He did?” Reynir asked.

Lalli’s face was as red as a summer strawberry. He stubbornly avoided eye contact and pulled his shoulders up around his ears to hide. 

Onni had a bad feeling about this.

“He could see my lynx ears,” Lalli mumbled into the fur or his cloak, “He… petted one. I could- _feel it,”_ Lalli blushed even harder, if that was even possible, “It felt nice.”

The only thing Onni could feel was an oncoming heart attack. Actually _touching_ someone's Luonto when it hadn't been summoned first- Without even a ritual or an incantation- It should have been _impossible!_

“Oh, so that’s what Tuuri was talking about!” Reynir interjected with a smile, “Tuuri said he could see some kind of spikes around her, and that meant her Luonto was probably a hedgehog.”

“Wait,” Onni waved his wings frantically, “You mean he could see Tuuri’s Luonto as well? But she’s not a mage, she cannot summon it to part from her!”

“That’s what he said,” Reynir shrugged, “He seemed really uncomfortable about it,” he paused, thought about something that made a crease appear between his brows, then turned to Lalli, “Hey, have you heard the ghosts lately?”

Lalli rolled his eyes. “No, stupid. They’re with Emil, of course I haven’t heard from them. What does that have to do with-”

“No, no, I mean-,” Reynir flapped his hands like he was sounding the alarm, “Back when he wouldn’t wake up. We could hear them whispering if we were close enough to him-”

“You _what!?”_ Onni squawked. 

“-but ever since he woke up I haven’t heard anything, even when he’s asleep. Have you?”

Lalli stood up straight as it had just occurred to him that, no, he hadn’t. “No. Onni, what does that mean?”

Onni's head was starting to spin. If a restless ghost was possessing a living person, a mage hearing whispers from them while the person in question was unconscious would mean the spirit was trying to communicate. That could be either good or bad, depending on if the spirit was seeking help or if it was looking for revenge. 

The whispers just stopping either meant the ghost had moved on, which was apparently not the case, or… If the possessed person was a mage, they could learn to trap the spirit inside, cut it off from reaching their conscious mind, and keep it there until it could be dealt with.

Onni had never heard of it actually being _done,_ though. To actually try it at all, a mage would have to be either mad or desperate, and in that state they were more likely to be trapped themselves, and the ghost possessing them free to take over their body.

It was similar to how a Kade took its victims. Far too similar for Onni’s tastes. Coupled with everything else Reynir and Lalli had told him...

There was no helping it. It had to be done.

“Bring your friend here to me,” Onni ordered solemnly, “I have an idea that might help.”

“Really?” Reynir perked up, “That’s great! Are you going to lead the ghosts to the afterlife?”

“Something like that,” Onni said, “I will need a few more days to regain my strength. Try not to do anything stupid until then.”

“That’s great!” Reynir said again, and turned to Lalli, “Let’s go tell Emil!”

“It would be better if you don’t,” Onni stopped him, “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. It will either work or it won’t. We’ll know when it’s done.”

Lalli ignored Reynir. His attention was reserved solely for Onni, his piercing eyes seeking truthfulness in Onni’s words. But Onni never lied, not to them, and the trust born of that certainty was warring with Lalli’s instincts.

Lalli could tell there was something odd in his words, Onni knew, but not what it was. 

_Good. This will be hard enough to do as it is._

Eventually, the tension bled out of Lalli’s spine, though his eyes still held a faint look of suspicion. He grabbed Reynir by the front of his robes and dragged him away before the shepherd boy could utter a single coherent protest. They were out of Onni’s area in a matter of seconds.

Onni sighed. He had not been fair to Lalli, asking him to kill the first friend he made. Of course Lalli couldn’t do it. There were many things Lalli was capable of, but cold blooded murder wasn’t one of them. To kill someone he cared about… 

No, Onni had been far too unfair, to ask that of Lalli.

It didn’t change that fact that it needed to be done.

Lalli was going to hate him for it. Tuuri would too.

But they will be alive to hate him, and at this point, Onni could live with that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooo, ominous....


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A person does not simply wake up one day and know how to be a believer. True faith has to be both earned and learned._
> 
> In which Tuuri and Emil talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Thought you'd seen the last of me? HAHAHAHAHA!
> 
> Pretty much plotless, just fluff and dialogue. DO YOU SEE WHY I HAVE TO KEEP INCREASING THE FINAL CHAPTER COUNT?!?!?!

Tuuri tore another strip of duct tape with her teeth and wrapped it around the shaky engine pipe. She surveyed her handiwork, decided it would hold for a few more kilometers, and started in on tightening the bolts back.

“Hey,” Emil greeted her, two bowls of Mikkel’s breakfast porridge in his hands, “How’s it going?”

“Emil! Almost done,” Tuuri waved her wrench with a grin, then wiped her hands on a rag, “Just need to tighten everything up and we’re good to go. How are you feeling?"

“Better," Emil handed one of the bowls over, "And I actually slept tonight, that helped a lot."

"That's good to hear!" Tuuri said around a mouthful of porridge, "Everyone was so worried about you. You have no idea how great it is to see you up on your feet and actually coherent."

"Yeah, Sigrun filled me in," Emil cringed a little, "Sorry I scared you all so much."

"You really don't need to apologise," Turri hurried to assure him, "Considering what happened- Well, we're just glad you're alive and okay," her lips thinned and her eyes went downcast, "We weren't sure you were going to pull through for a while there."

"Yeah, I know," Emil nodded. He was quiet for a long moment, then set his bowl aside and spread his arms invitingly.

Tuuri didn't need to be told twice. She all but threw her bowl aside and leapt at Emil in a bear hug.

“I was so scared you wouldn’t make it,” Tuuri confessed, voice going shaky, “I felt so useless, I couldn’t do anything! And you weren’t waking up, and you sounded like you were in so much pain!”

“I’m better now, I promise,” Emil mumbled into her hair, his arms just as tight around her, “I’m getting better at it, it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. But I’ll be fine in the end, I promise.”

Tuuri didn’t say anything, just tried to gather at least a shred of her composure. Emil didn’t move or complain, simply let her cry on his shoulder, all the relief and unrealized grief pouring out of her eyes in rivers of tears. All those days of fretting and uncertainty and the horrible twisting feeling that seemed to be coming from her very soul… All of it had come to an end, and it refused to be bottled up anymore.

In the back of her mind, she thought she understood why Onni always hugged her with so much force and desperation whenever she did something that made him worry about her. 

Eventually, Tuuri mustered up enough willpower to let go. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to blubber all over you like that.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve experienced this morning,” Emil patted her on the shoulder, “Sigrun hugged me so hard I think she would have broken my ribs if her arm wasn’t hurt, and I can’t even yawn in Mikkel’s vicinity without him checking my temperature.”

Tuuri laughed a little helplessly, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Just be happy that’s all he’s checking.”

“Well I’m not falling for the face-cancer joke again, so his options are a little limited,” Emil said dryly, “Not that he doesn’t try. Magic being involved gave him a lot of bonkers theories, even though he knows less about magic that  _ I  _ do at this point.”

“Speaking of magic,” Tuuri looked him over, “I notice you’re speaking Swedish again, and your eyes are normal. Does it just come and go, or do you need to... turn it on?”

Emil shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “A bit of both, I guess. I…  _ think  _ I know how to do it on my own, but sometimes it just comes to me,” he made a face at the horizon, “I just wish there was someone I could ask if that was normal.”

“You probably will soon,” Tuuri assured him, “We caught some decent signal this morning, and Mikkel spoke to Trond about contacting the Icelandic Academy of Seidr. Trond knows everyone, so I’m sure they’ll find someone who can help you.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Emil kicked the dirt, not looking at her, “Freya said something about Guides not being needed before. But there was some kind of plan in place, and the only way not to mess it up was to-  _ turn me,”  _ Emil sighed, “She said I’m supposed to bring these ghosts to someone who can take them in, but nothing about how I’m supposed to do it, or if Reynir’s Pastor Lady is the one I’m supposed to bring them to.”

“Who else would it be?” Tuuri asked, “Reynir said he found her in a vision, didn’t he? So she must be the right one. And I assume she will be the one to show you how to send them on.”

Emil looked at her strangely. “How can you be so sure?”

“They’re  _ gods _ , Emil,” Tuuri said, a little bewildered, “If they don’t know what they’re doing, we have much bigger problems on our hands.”

“And it’s just- That easy for you,” it was Emil’s turn to be bewildered, “To trust that this is what they want, that we can do it and get out of here alive afterwards. That they’re…” he waved a hand helplessly, eyes beseeching.

It hit Tuuri like a brick then, what exactly was the problem.

“Right, I keep forgetting Swedes don’t believe in gods. I guess this is all new to you,” she frowned. It seemed strange, almost incomprehensible to her, that there was a whole nation out there who saw with their own eyes all the work their gods did, and could still deny their existence. 

Well, at least one Swede couldn’t stay in denial, and Tuuri couldn’t just turn him away. But she wasn’t sure she could explain something she’d simply known her entire life. What seemed simple to her - gods were real, they gave humans souls, and the gift of magic to some - Emil seemed to be struggling with the most. She, who had only heard the gods through her brother and cousin, had an easier time believing in them than someone who had spoken with one directly. 

They said seeing was believing, so why was Emil having so much trouble with it? How could it be, that his goddess had more faith in him than he had in her?

Then the lightbulb went off in Tuuri’s head.

“It all comes down to faith,” she said, then sharply turned to Emil, waving her wrench at him pointedly, “You have faith in Sigrun, right? ”

Emil eyed the wrench suspiciously. “Well, of course.”

“And why is that?”

“Because she’s Sigrun,” Emil blurted out without a second’s hesitation. Even though that was precisely the answer she’d been hoping for, Tuuri waved for him to go on.

“Well, at first it was because she was the Captain,” Emil continued after a moment, taking a tiny step back, “But I’ve seen her stride into Troll nests with nothing but a dagger and a boatload of confidence, and come out pretty much dancing in their blood,” he shrugged, taking a pause to think. Tuuri didn’t say anything, but went back to fixing the engine while she waited for him to continue.

“And… She always had faith in me. That’s- No one’s ever trusted me that much, to literally watch their back in a life-or-death situation. So… Even though I was terrified most of the time I didn’t want to let her down, and she hasn’t let  _ me  _ down either. And even though she’s so much better than me at-  _ everything,  _ she insists I could be better too, if she teaches me. So, uh, it would be pretty hard  _ not  _ to have faith in her after that.”

By the end of the speech, Emil’s cheeks were petal pink. It was wonderfully touching, and actually even better than Tuuri had hoped for. 

Emil was going to do just fine.

“See, that’s called true faith,” she patted his shoulder with a proud smile, “That’s how it works with the gods as well, except on a grander and more worshipful scale. At first you sort of assume faith because they are gods, but you learn true faith through the trials of life. The first time you walked into a Troll nest after Sigrun, you did it on the assumption that she knew how to get you out alive, and when she confirmed that assumption, you trusted that she could and would do it again.

“And this time, your goddess sent you to play your part in her plan, and she gave you the tools you needed to do it. And if everything works out okay in the end, it will be easier to do it a second time, just as it will get easier still the third time. But for now, you just have to assume she knows what she’s doing, just like you did with Sigrun. And once you get to know her, through your stories and legends and whatever messages she sends you, having faith in her will come naturally.”

Emil looked contemplative, but there was a smidge more understanding in his eyes than before. 

“I… Think I get it now,” he grimaced, “Well, okay, I don’t really, but… I think I can take a leap of faith, now that I at least know there’s someone waiting on the other side for me.”

“It’s a start,” Tuuri nodded, “And a definite step forward. Speaking of-,” she slammed the hood back down and took up her toolbox, “It’s time we get moving forward as well.”

“Oh,” Emil startled, and inevitably looked down at Tuuri’s overturned bowl, “But you’ve barely eaten anything.”

“I’ll take an extra helping for lunch,” Tuuri nudged him along before he could say anything else, “Come on, we’re wasting daylight!”

Emil looked like he was going to protest again, so Tuuri sent him stumbling in Mikkel’s direction. Sure enough, Mikkel’s Big Brother instincts, strong enough to give Onni a run for his money, kicked in immediately, and Tuuri was safely able to get into the driver’s seat while Emil futilely tried to escape Mikkel’s fussing.

She hadn’t counted on somebody already being there.

“Damn, Puffy,” Sigrun nearly gave her a heart attack, “That was positively evil.”

“What was?!” Tuuri squeaked, “I didn’t do anything!”

Sigrun smiled devilishly. “Kid, I’m old, not blind. While I would usually be very much against throwing your teammate into the line of fire to escape, that was hilarious, so I’ll let it slide this once. And because you gave that whole speech about faith to him, that was awesome. I really liked the parts about me.”

It was Tuuri’s turn to blush bright red.

“You’re adorable,” Sigrun gleefully informed her, “I’m so going to snatch you up for my division. It’s always good to have a full set.”

“Wh- what?”

“But you were also right about us needing to get going,” Sigrun clapped her hands authoritatively, ignoring Tuuri’s confusion, “Chop-chop, people, we’re sitting ducks over here!”

The last bit was directed at Mikkel and Emil, who were hauling the dishes and the stove back inside. Mikkel looked as perfectly serene as ever, seeming oblivious to the fact that Emil was shooting daggers at him with his eyes.

Tuuri started up the engine, and thank all the gods, it started off rumbling ominously, but soon smoothed out. It still sounded like it was wheezing for breath with every tug of gas, but it was working.

And so they went on, slowly but steadily trudging along. The rest of the team was mostly quiet, Sigrun and Mikkel quietly chatting in the office room, and Emil probably catching another nap with Lalli and Reynir. Assuming they were off looking for Reynir’s priestess, nobody had been eager to wake either of them up unless they had to.

“Hey, Puffy!” Sigrun called from the radio room a few hours later, “We’re getting closer to one of those Church things! Time to send out your cousin.”

But this was important, so they had no choice.

“Okay, someone wake him up and send him here, I don’t want to risk stopping the engine!” Tuuri yelled back.

“I’ll get him!” Emil responded. Oh, good, he was probably the one person on the team who didn’t run the risk of getting his fingers bitten if Lalli woke up in a bad mood.

Not- That it happened a lot. Anymore. Almost never in the past year, and only once on this trip! To be fair to Lalli, anybody would have been startled upon experiencing Reynir’s version of a wakeup call.

_ Anyway,  _ Lalli probably wouldn’t bite Emil no matter how he woke him up, Tuuri was reasonably sure. Because she, like Sigrun, wasn’t  _ blind.  _ And now that she wasn’t fearing for Emil’s life and her own sanity and generally about the survival rate of their mission, she had more than enough time to contemplate Lalli’s love life.

Hey, if you’ve got no love life of your own, the least you could do was live vicariously through your younger family members. She was sure Mikkel would agree, at least.

So she waited for Lalli and Sigrun to come to her for translation, but they never came. Worried that Lalli was being more recalcitrant than usual, she risked taking her eyes off the road to look at what was keeping him.

As it turned out, nothing was. Sigrun was pointing at the map and saying something Tuuri couldn’t hear over the faulty engine. Emil and Lalli were next to her, listening. 

And Emil’s eyes were faintly glowing.

Well, that explained it. It hadn’t really occurred to Tuuri that they’d technically acquired another translator, but perhaps it should have. Now Emil could do half of her duties while she had to concentrate on keeping the tank moving.

Tuuri smiled to herself. Good. Lalli really needed more people to talk to, and not just in the Dreamworld, and it was even better that the new translator was the same person he had a crush on.

_ He-he,  _ Tuuri thought giddily,  _ Things are finally starting to look up. Our mission is finished, we have all the books we could want, Emil is alive and doing okay, Lalli is making friends, and we are on our way back home as famous explorers! This adventure was so worth it! I can’t  _ wait  _ to tell Onni! _

But of course, as these things went, it was never that simple.

No sooner had Tuuri thought that, and the engine exploded again.

“Uhhh, okay,” Sigrun said, “Guess we’re stopping after all. Twigs, you’re up! We’ll probably still be here when you return. If not, you know how to find us.”

Emil repeated her words almost exactly, except they sounded Finnish to Tuuri. Lalli nodded, pulled his hood up, and hopped out of the tank without looking back.

Tuuri sighed and got her toolbox, which was never far from her these days.

_ Well, back to work,  _ Tuuri thought,  _ Still worth it though! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tuuri is a darling, isn't she? 
> 
> Also, it occured to on my 13th read that she is the only one who never complained about Mikkel's food, not even once. But in canon, by the time she died, she was practically half the size she started at. Conclusion? Yeah.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Reynir has another vision, and figures something out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Brought to you by end of semester exams, because my inspiration is proportional to the amount of studying I have to do, and inversely proportional to the amount of time I have to do it.
> 
> Also, if you yell "EMIL YOU OBLIVIOUS DUMBASS" at least once in this chapter, I have done my job properly.
> 
> Edit: I just realized some of the final editing changes were't saved before I posted it and I need to put them back in, so if you reread this chapter some sentences might be slightly different. Sorry bout that

Tuuri kept the engine going with nothing but duct tape and some mild form of Finnish magic, Emil was pretty sure. The poor thing kept exploding twice a day for the next two days, and every time Tuuri took her trusted toolbox, soundly cursed out the engine, and somehow managed to convince it to go just a few more klicks north.

By the last time the engine stopped, Sigrun didn’t even wake up from her nap, despite the noise. Tuuri took her toolbox, Emil took his rifle and bandolier and out they went. Mikkel, just as well used to it, took the opportunity to do some laundry.

As Tuuri fussed over the engine, Emil idly looked around, looking more for signs of magic than Trolls. Lalli and Reynir had done their best to summarize their respective abilities in an effort to see which ones Emil had in common with them, but through various trials and errors, they’d concluded: almost nothing.

He couldn’t use runes. Reynir sketched up a rune he’d seen drawn on heavy objects on a piece of paper, so when it was flicked in the air, it stayed floating. Kitty had had a field day chasing it, but when Emil copied the rune exactly, it remained as just a piece of decoration. No magic to keep it afloat.

Next, Lalli had taken him scouting. Occasionally he’d pointed at a tree or a bird or a puddle and asked Emil if he saw the spirits inhabiting them, but the answer was always no. He didn’t even see Lalli’s second pair of ears again, though he’d decided against admitting that he’d been looking for them.

Only once, when he’d been petting Kitty while ‘powered up’, as Sigrun put it, he’d seen her start glowing blue again. Lalli said he was seeing her spirit, but that was about the most he’d managed on his own. In the end, they concluded that his Mage Sight was better than Reynir’s, but still leagues behind Lalli’s. Had he been Finnish, he wouldn’t have even qualified as a proper mage.

That seemed to be the extent of Freya’s gifts to him: to speak anyone’s native language, to see souls of the living and the dead, and the ability to help them pass on through his own mind.

Well. That, and the ability to accidentally heat bathwater every evening. At this point he was probably the cleanest member of the crew, whether he liked it or not. In an effort to conserve their water and gas, Mikkel decided that whoever wanted a bath was free to use it after Emil. It even stayed warm longer than if Mikkel had heated it over the fire, which was tempting enough that some people actually took him up on that offer.

But that was more of a side-effect than an ability. The fire from his mind bleeding through the cracks and into the physical world. He didn’t have any control over it, not outside the Dreamscape, or even outside his area. 

Emil refused to be disappointed by that. He’d managed fine with his flamethrower and his grenades so far. That was all the fire control he needed, no godly help necessary. He was a big boy, he could set his own fires the old fashioned way!

...Did he smell smoke?

“Eeep!” Tuuri screamed and jumped away from the burning engine just as Mikkel dumped the entire washtub full of soapy water over it.

“Wharglf?!” Sigrun came running out of the tank, clearly still not entirely coherent.

“I-,” Tuuri took one despairing look at the melted engine, “I don’t think I can fix it anymore.”

“Time for walking now?” Sigrun grimaced. She didn’t look any better than she did before her nap.

“Yes,” Mikkel, as usual, looked completely unruffled. He took out a folded piece of paper from his jacket and calmly unfurled it. “We have two weeks until the arrival of the boat, but I have prepared plans for this event, so you can all be at ease.”

Well at least someone had a plan, even if that someone was Mikkel. Mikkel having plans usually resulted in Emil having to lug something heavy around. Emil glared at the stupid engine that decided it had had enough and decided to set itself on fire to escape its duty. 

Tuuri was looking at him strangely.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t even breathe in that direction!” he defended himself.

“Oh, of course not!” Tuuri smiled reassuringly, “Your eyes are glowing again. I just wondered if you saw anything out there.”

“Oh,” yeah, Mikkel’s speech _did_ seem a lot clearer than usual, and Tuuri’s lilting accent was missing, “Sorry. And no, I didn’t see anything. I told you it sometimes just comes and goes.”

“Emil,” Mikkel waved a bit of paper at him, “Ah, excellent, you’ll be able to understand each other. You need to take Lalli with you on a shopping trip to the commercial patch we drove past. Hopefully you can salvage some useful items for us. Here’s your list, more important items are on top. Be back before nightfall.”

“Uh, sure,” Emil took the proffered list and turned to Lalli, who’d just come out to see what all the fuss was about.

“Hey, our engine’s busted, so we’ll have to walk from now on,” Emil filled him in, “Mikkel said we need to go back to that shopping district we passed and get- uh…” Emil frowned at the list, “Actually, I have no idea what these are.”

Lalli leaned over to see the list as if he’d have more luck deciphering Mikkel’s orders. He made a face at it when he inevitably recognised nothing.

Nothing to it. He’d have to swallow his pride and ask.

“Why are you still here?” Mikkel asked tersely when Emil interrupted his conversation with Sigrun.

“I don’t understand half of these words.”

Mikkel looked terribly unimpressed with him, but he did take the paper back and made tiny drawings of the items they needed, explaining what they were as he was doing it.

Mikkel had just handed the list back to Emil when Reynir emerged from the tank, looking just as sleep-ruffled as Sigrun.

“Tuuri said we have to walk now,” he said around a yawn, “Can I help with the preparations?”

“You could come with us,” Emil offered, “We’ll have to carry a lot of junk, another pair of hands would be useful.”

“No,” Mikkel cut him off before Reynir could utter a word, “You’re going into the outskirts of a former city. You’re not immune. You can help me wrap up these books for transport.”

“But Mikkel, it’s daylight!” Reynir protested, “And I’d have my mask and I’d be with Emil and Lalli! They wouldn’t let me get hurt!”

“As touching as your trust in their abilities to protect you is,” Mikkel sounded even more unimpressed than before, “Accidents happen. Last time it was Sigrun’s arm. Next time it may be someone’s throat. You’re staying here.”

Reynir flinched and then wilted like a drying flower at the accusation. And while Emil really didn’t appreciate Mikkel’s tone, the old Dane wasn’t wrong. Reynir might have been another pair of helping hands, but he was also a liability. Still, Mikkel could have phrased it a dozen different ways, but he’d chosen the one that would make Reynir feel too guilty to even think about going out. Just because Mikkel was stressed too didn’t mean he had to be an ass about it, and Emil planned to tell him so.

He’d barely got the first syllable out when Lalli sighed in irritation and took it upon himself to literally push Reynir back into the tank. One the doors were all but slammed into Reynir’s nose, he turned to Mikkel and nodded. Mikkel patted him on the shoulder in approval and went off towards the storage compartment.

“Okay, that was just mean,” Emil chided him, but much milder than what he’d planned for Mikkel, “He was just trying to be helpful.”

“I know,” Lalli growled, then pulled Emil along by his elbow, “And he will be _insufferable_ if we leave him behind _now_. Give me a boost.”

“Er, okay?” Wonderful, even when he understood what Lalli was saying he had no idea what he was talking about. Nevertheless, he laced his fingers together and helped Lalli get up to the tank window. He stuck his head inside but didn’t actually go in.

“Tuuri!” Emil heard him whispering, “Tell the stupid one to come here and be quiet about it!”

“Uh, why?” Tuuri asked.

“Just do it.”

“Um, Reynir? Lalli said you should come to the window-”

“And come down here.”

“-and get down it. I’m confused, _why_ are you going out the window?”

“Because,” Lalli stubbornly said.

“Oh!” Tuuri sounded excited, “You’re sneaking out! That’s so cool!”

“I’m pretty sure this counts as insubordination,” Emil said mostly to Lalli’s waist. He was ignored. 

Message delivered, Lalli clambered down using Emil’s shoulders as a handhold, but once he was back on his feet he didn’t let go. He just looked at Emil’s eyes with downright uncomfortable intensity he hadn’t used since they were on the train to Mora. Was something about Emil’s eyes strange? Oh no, was Emil making him uncomfortable? Did he do something he shouldn’t have? He always put his foot in his mouth, what did he do now?

Uh, why was Lalli getting closer?

“Lalli, Emil?” Reynir asked, finally poking his head out the window, “What are you doing?”

“Mrrr,” Lalli grumbled at his arrival and let go of Emil, looking like he was praying for patience, “Mikkel is not looking. Do you want to come along or not?”

“Er, Lalli wants you to come along on the mission, without telling Mikkel,” Emil translated, still feeling a bit off-kilter, “Are you going?”

Lalli glared daggers at him, like Emil had inexcusably twisted his words, but Reynir smiled so hard his mask nearly went lopsided. He slipped out the window with grace Emil honestly hadn’t expected of him and landed on his feet, as quietly as Kitty.

“Great, let’s go!” Reynir barely kept his tone quiet, then proceeded to skip away. 

In the wrong direction.

Once they’d managed to steer him back on track, they set out for the shopping district, careful to avoid Mikkel’s line of sight. He’d notice they disobeyed his orders, of course, but they planned to be long gone by that point. And Sigrun would absolve them if they came back enough useful stuff and with all of their limbs intact. Hell, she’d probably be proud of them for taking initiative.

On the way, Lalli was absolutely determined to be in a bad mood, but that didn’t deter Reynir one bit. He seemed fascinated with everything they passed, even if it was just a particularly gnarled tree. Emil had warned him that they couldn’t talk much, and especially not loudly, since you never know if there was some Beast with enough fur and hunger to try and take a bite out of them in broad daylight. 

Reynir didn’t seem to mind the silence, and other than a few excited gasps he didn’t seek to break it. Emil kept half an eye on him, just in case he decided to wander off, but most of his attention was on his surroundings and Lalli.

Lalli was - there was no other word for it - _sulking._ He was dragging the bag Mikkel had given him and staring straight ahead with a mulish look on his face. Emil was positive that if his tail was showing, it would be lashing unhappily. 

Emil wondered what he did to deserve it _this time._ Nothing was coming to mind but, as public school had aptly proven, he was fully capable of offending people without realising what he’d done. At least this time he hadn’t gotten a bowlful of porridge to the face. And he still hadn’t figured out what he’d done to deserve that, either!

Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this friendship business…

He mentally slapped himself. That was quitter talk! Sigrun would have probably slapped him herself if she’d heard what he was thinking about! So he screwed up! Big deal! He could _talk_ to Lalli now, he could actually _ask_ him what he did wrong!

Right! He could and would do that!

...Aaaany second now.

 _Dammit Västerström, get it together,_ Emil privately told himself, took a deep breath, and lengthened his steps until he could reach Lalli and grab his hood.

“What?” Lalli asked, clearly still irritated.

Emil swallowed heavily, but soldiered on. “Did I do something? I mean… Are you mad at me?”

“Yes,” Lalli bit out. Emil flinched back, just a little bit, but it was apparently enough.

Lalli’s face fell. He sighed heavily and looked away with a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “No, not really. It’s just-” he paused to glare at Emil some more, “You can be really stupid sometimes.”

Okay, that was fair. It still didn’t answer the question of _what_ exactly did Emil do wrong, though.

“Emil,” Lalli sounded alarmed, “Where is Reynir?”

 _Oh shit,_ Emil thought, his heart sinking down to his stomach as he turned around and saw that Reynir was _gone._

They exchanged a quick, panicked look and _ran._ Dammit, if Reynir had so much as stubbed his toe Mikkel was going to kill both of them, and Sigrun wasn’t even going to protest! If something worse than that happened, they might as well give up on going back to the camp. Mikkel would-

They found Reynir not ten meters away from the bend in the road, standing there like a complete idiot and staring at his boots.

“Reynir!” Emil called, probably louder than he should have, but he didn’t even care, “I thought we told you not to get separated!”

“Huh?” Reynir looked up, startled, “Oh, sorry. But,” he looked down at the snow again, “I think I saw this before, or something like it.”

“What, snow?” Emil asked, bewildered, “You mean to tell me you, an Icelander, never saw snow before?”

He could hear Lalli snickering from behind. Reynir glared at him.

“Not snow, the tracks! I think I saw them in a vision!”

“A vision?” 

“Yes! Look!” Reynir crouched down, “It was a lot like this, a deep ridge in the snow with two sets of footsteps on either side. But the trail where Lalli was dragging his bag was a lot wider, and it wasn’t his footsteps on the left.”

Lalli, who suddenly sobered up at the word ‘vision’, crouched down beside Reynir, trying to see what he was seeing. “What did he say?”

Emil dutifully translated, which was still a little weird since to him it seemed like he was just quoting Reynir verbatim. Lalli nodded and went back to studying the tracks.

“Was there anything else?” Emil asked.

“Yeah,” Reynir pointed at the empty space to the left of Lalli’s footsteps, “Dog was walking here, and I could see his tracks as well. And then he turned to the left, stopped, asked if he’s done a good job, and disappeared.”

“You think he wanted to show you something?” Emil wondered, “Duchess did stuff like that sometimes. Back when she was alive, I mean, when she wanted me to open doors for her. You think this is like that?” 

“Maybe,” Reynir got up, “But I don’t know what he was trying to show me.”

“And you saw nothing else? Where those tracks were? Who else made them?”

“No.”

Emil looked down at the snow, not sure what the vision was about either. “Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming?”

“No,” Reynir was more insistent this time, “I don’t really dream. When I go to sleep, I either wake up on the Dreamsea or in the morning. Before I came to the Silent World I didn’t dream at all.”

Well, it was certainly a point towards it being a vision. “Alright, you probably did see the future then. But maybe what it was trying to show you just hasn’t happened yet?”

“...probably,” Reynir muttered and looked at the tracks again, “I think the footsteps on the right were yours, though. They look the same.”

“But the left ones weren’t Lalli’s?”

“No,” Reynir sighed, “I don’t know, I guess I’ll know it when I see it. We are going to be walking a lot until we reach the outpost.”

“True,” Emil turned around and continued down the path, “And in the meantime, we should probably get the stuff Mikkel needs.”

That was the end of it. The conversation made Lalli perk up again, at least. Emil filled him in on Reynir’s side of the conversation, but his only contribution was to nod sagely. 

“It was a message from his god. It means we are going in the right direction,” was the only thing Lalli had to say on the matter.

It was as easy for him as it was for Tuuri, to trust that the deities they’d never even heard of would lead their faithful down the right path. Emil would have asked him how he could be so sure, but he had a feeling all he would get in return was that same bewildered look Tuuri gave him. 

_They are gods, Emil. If they don’t know what they’re doing, we have bigger problems on our hands._

Freya said there was a plan in place. Hopefully it included getting all of them out of the Silent World alive and at mostly unharmed. Freya, at least, had gone to a lot of trouble to save Emil, the moment he actually asked for it. It stood to reason that there really was someone over there looking out for them.

Well… He’d gone into the Silent World with far less than that. If they actually got back, there was probably some kind of temple to Freya in Iceland that had priests who could answer his questions. Hopefully at least one of them would be as nice as Old Lady Pastor.

Once they got to the shopping district, Emil showed them the list and told them to just gather junk that looked like it, then they could sort out which would actually be useful. 

Emil nearly went off before Lalli bonked him over the head with a plastic jug, which was incidentally right what he was looking for. They stuffed the ones that didn’t have any leaks into the bag and continued on.

They found a row of wheelbarrows a few isles down. They were rusty and covered with gross stuff, but no actual Grossling stuff. There was one that even had an intact tire, if deflated.

And next to it, a little white flower, blooming under a shelter of broken glass that redirected a bit of sunlight right over it.

Emil smiled.

Footsteps made him turn around. Both Reynir and Lalli had their arms full of various stuff and were holding it all out for inspection.

“This is not a tent,” Emil took an old umbrella off the pile. It had some rather obvious teeth marks right in the middle of it, so it wasn’t going to be useful either way. He moved a bucket and an old basket until he found a pack with a drawing similar to the one Mikkel made on the paper. “I guess this is. Okay, we’re taking it. What’s next?”

Reynir’s haul yielded a lot of junk but also some sleeping bags and even a thick comforter vacuum-sealed into plastic. Emil vaguely remembered from his Cleanser days that stuff could last for centuries and everyone had to wear masks when burning it, so it had probably preserved the comforter as well. Emil put them all in the wheelbarrow.

“Well, we have everything we came for. Great job, guys!”

“Yes!” Reynir cheered quietly. Lalli, on the other hand, looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” Emil asked. If the scout was worried that was usually the first sign of danger, “Are there any Grosslings close?”

“No,” Lalli quickly said, but his expression did not abate, “Your eyes are still glowing.”

“Uh, yes?” Emil was confused. He’d been able to understand both Lalli and Reynir the entire time, so he figured they were, “Is something wrong with them? I mean besides the fact that I look like I have a lightbulb in my head.”

Reynir snickered into his hand. Lalli didn’t look amused.

“It’s never lasted this long before,” he tilted his head, “When did it start?”

“Hmm,” Emil thought back, “Around the time the engine exploded, or maybe a bit before. I don’t know, I didn’t notice the difference until Tuuri pointed it out.”

“And you feel okay?”

“Yeah. No headache or anything.”

“And the ghosts?”

“Still in here,” Emil tapped his temple briefly, “I can hear them faintly if I focus, but most of the time I forget they’re even there. They’re pretty docile.”

Lalli, if anything, looked even more disturbed.

“That’s kinda’ weird,” Reynir said, “That they’re so calm you don’t even notice them, I mean.”

“Well they _are_ cats right now,” Emil shrugged, “Pretty much all the cats need is food, a warm place to sleep and someone to pet them and they’re happy. I don’t really see the reason they’d be unsettled.”

Reynir and Lalli exchanged worried and somewhat disbelieving looks at that. 

“What?” Emil asked defensively.

“You didn’t see them when they were following us,” Reynir said, quiet and subdued, “Or when one attacked the tank. It wanted to kill us. It wanted us to _suffer_. I had a vision of what would have happened if they’d succeeded, and-” he shivered before he got the word out, “It was… painful.”

They stood there in silence, unsure what to do. It was strange to think about, that the weird, deformed cats were actually the same beings that had driven Trolls to attack them and nearly killed Emil. That them being all in Emil’s head was a very good reason to doubt his chances of survival, and that he was technically still in danger as long as they were there.

Emil did know that. He just… Preferred not to think about it.

“But, anyway, I don’t think they’re the reason my eyes are still glowing,” Emil tried to get the conversation back on track, “Maybe it’s just because I’ve been talking to you? We wouldn’t understand each other if they weren’t.”

“Mrrr,” Lalli didn’t sound happy about that hypothesis.

“Look, I feel fine,” Emil assured him, “So there’s probably nothing wrong.”

“Mrrr,” Lalli glared at him, “How can you be so careless?”

“Uh?” Emil could only blink at the sudden change in tone.

“You were in a _coma._ For a _week,”_ Lalli was positively growling. Reynir took a step away from him, “There are _vengeful spirits_ in your _head_. Do you even understand what would have happened to you if you goddess hadn’t interfered?!”

“Lalli, calm down,” Emil kept his voice gentle and calm. What was wrong with him?

“Onni is going to try to kill you!” Lalli yelled in his face.

“Wh-what?!”

“I don’t know if he can, but I know he will try!” Lalli gritted his teeth, still glaring at him, “I know he will, because he told me to kill you before you woke up.”

“He _what?!”_

“What’s going on?” Reynir fretted from the sidelines, “Emil, what is he saying?”

“He thought you were going to turn into a Kade,” Lalli ignored him, “A Turned Mage. Soul Stealer. Like the one that killed nearly half of Saimaa. That took our grandmother. He is afraid you are going to turn the same.”

“A Kade?” Emil asked, latching onto the first vaguely familiar word, “That thing Reynir called me when I first woke up?”

“Huh?” Reynir, for his part, looked even more confused, “But you’re not a Kade.”

“I don’t even know what that is!”

 _“It doesn’t matter!”_ Lalli _screamed, “Onni thinks you are, and he won’t stop just because you tell me not to do it! You need to be careful until those ghosts are gone or you could die!”_

“Lalli, shhhhh!” Emil put his hands up, not sure how to calm him down, “You need to be quiet! You’ll wake something up!”

That did snap Lalli out of it, but it didn’t make him any calmer. It just left him nearly shaking with repressed rage, glaring daggers at Emil. Quick as lightning, Lalli grabbed him by the front of his coat and pulled him close, his pointy little nose nearly brushing against Emil’s.

Emil didn't dare breathe.

“If you die, I will _never_ forgive you,” Lalli whispered, the threat clear in his voice.

And Emil… Felt something deep in his stomach, something wild and unsettling. Something that wasn’t fear, but just as exhilarating and just as shaking. 

Before Emil could do something unforgivably stupid, like _leaning closer,_ Lalli released him and stomped away.

Emil stood there for a moment, trying to remember how to use words.

Reynir’s gasp finally broke him out of his stupor. The ridiculous Icelander was gaping like an idiot behind his mask, eyes wide enough that Emil could see white all around his irises. For some reason he was alternately pointing at Emil and Lalli’s retreating back.

“What?” Emil bit out. His face felt hot for some reason.

“You!” Reynir squeaked, “Him!”

 _“What?”_ Emil repeated. Was the evening fever coming? Emil was pretty sure they hadn’t wasted that much time here.

“Did what I think just happened happen!?”

Emil would have dearly liked for at least one person to make sense today, but alas. “Considering _I_ have no idea what just happened, I really can’t answer that.”

Reynir was still gaping like an idiot. Emil sighed and took the handles of the wheelbarrow. “Come on, we have to get back to the camp before sundown. And, uh, I think we need to talk when we can all understand each other.”

“Ah, right, camp,” Reynir snapped his jaw shut and shook his head slightly, like he was trying to clear his thoughts manually. He walked away, vaguely in the direction Lalli had gone. 

Emil heaved up the wheelbarrow on its single wheel, but was stopped by a dull ‘thump’.

The piece of glass on the floor had fallen over the little flower.

Emil stared at it for a moment before lowering the handles back down. He knelt by the flower and gently lifted the glass back up. Luckily something had stopped its fall, so it only bent the flower almost to the floor but didn’t actually squish it. Emil gently eased the flower back to a mostly standing position.

It sprung back up, a little bent over, but its stem intact, not broken.

“There you go,” Emil whispered, “Keep up the good job, little flower.”

Flower encouraged and his business done, Emil took up the wheelbarrow again and followed their trail back to camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Emil, whatEVER could be going through Lalli's head? We shall never know...
> 
> Anyway, in the canon timeline, this about the time when Tuuri dies, and everyone is just waiting for it to happen, which is a vastly different atmosphere than the one here, so I couldn't just skip it. We are also ever so slowly approaching the apex of this plot, and at this pace, we might even reach it in a few chapters! 
> 
> ...I should just tag this as Slow Burn by now, shouldn't I?
> 
> Also, the obvious ending metaphor is obvious.
> 
> Edit: I just saw that this is now my second longest work. Remember when this was supposed to be 15k long? Yeah, me neither.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short Mikkel interlude, wherein he flirts and ponders some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm procrastinating studying for my test and this is the result. Enjoy your breaks while I'm still giving them, plot is fast approaching.

Honestly, Mikkel wasn’t even surprised when he came back into the office and found Reynir gone.

Were he a religious man, he would have looked to the heavens and prayed for patience. But seeing as he wasn’t, and was blessed with a passel of raucous baby siblings, he calmly gathered the bowls he had come for and brought them outside, where their lunch was cooking. Sigrun was sitting by the fire with Kitty on her lap, ostensibly on guard duty. She did look better, thankfully, but she was still pale and the dark circles under her eyes were still prominent.

Her injury hadn’t developed into sepsis as Mikkel had feared. The infection was going down slowly but surely, but now that she wasn’t running on pure adrenaline anymore, the exhaustion and her compromised constitution were catching up with her. She had held up admirably since the Troll attack, mostly through sheer willpower, but collapsed off her feet almost the moment Emil was back on his, and had spent the last three days mostly asleep.

The rest had done her a world of good, though, and Mikkel was even starting to think she would be up to walking all the way to the port.

Possibly also cuffing some young misfits around the ear. 

"Sigrun, I am starting to have a sinking feeling our children are stupid,” he told their Captain.

"Pshht, of course they are!” Sigrun laughed, “They're kids! They'll grow out of it once their hormones and other gooey junk settles. What did they do this time?”

“Lalli and Emil took Reynir with them to gather supplies,” he said, ladling the stew into three bowls, “Right to the edge of an Old World town, and disobeying a direct order.”

“Hmm, that doesn’t sound like Twigs,” Sigrun mused, “Did you specifically order either him or Emil, or did you just tell Braidy he’s not going? He’s a civilian, so direct orders have no weight to him.”

Mikkel froze.

“Yep, thought so,” Sigrun stuffed a spoonful into her mouth, “Smart little weasel. I might have to snap him up as well. He should be useful after some proper training, even if he’s not immune.”

“...Do the rest of our teammates know you are planning to collect them like a set of knives?” Mikkel asked mildly, glad she didn’t linger on his little blunder. This was  _ not  _ how he envisioned this conversation going, might as well salvage what he could.

“Eh, they’ll figure it out,” Sigrun shrugged, “And they’re not exactly making it hard for me. Stubby and Freckles want to see the world, and there are no better sights than the Norwegian mountains! Emil has to learn this magic stuff, and they sure don’t teach that in Sweden. Pipsqueak will follow his soulmate and _ta-da!”_ she waved her harm out dramatically, “I’ve got the whole set!”

“ _ I _ don’t recall agreeing to that offer,” Mikkel rose an eyebrow.

Sigrun raised one back. “Are you refusing?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“That means you’re going,” Sigrun settled back in her chair, satisfied, “You’ve got no other jobs lined up, you’ve already said that. You don’t want to return to your family farm, and there’s always need for extra pair of working hands in my town,” she grinned mischievously, “Failing that, I’ll just knock you out and carry you home, and you’ll calmly resign to your fate in your usual fashion.”

“Ah, so we’ve reverted back to the old Viking tradition of marriage by capture,” Mikkel rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t entirely suppress his smile, “And here I was hoping I would be wed honourably.”

“Hey, I haven’t ravished you  _ yet _ , have I?” Sigrun puffed up her chest, “I have been the soul of honour! I’ve promised to keep my hands to myself until we’re back to civilisation, and until I have wined and dined you properly. Once that’s done, though, I expect to see some skin.”

“I am blushing to the tips of my hair,” Mikkel said dryly, “Also, remind me to introduce to to a certain [Danish wedding song](https://satwcomic.com/my-wedding) when we get back. I think you’ll find it enlightening.” 

“Why don’t you sing it for me right now?” Sigrun suggested, or more likely demanded, knowing her, mouth stretched in a lecherous smirk.

Mikkel smirked back. “It’s a wedding song. If you want to hear  _ me  _ sing it, you’ll have to marry me first.”

Sigrun didn't get a chance to reply. The words were no sooner out of Mikkel's mouth when Tuuri, who nobody had seen approaching, dropped the books with a startled 'eeeep'.

"I'm sorry for intruding!" she quickly bent to gather her books, "Don't mind me, I was just- nothing! No help needed here, no sir! I'll go back to packing these,  _ quietly _ ! Byehavefun!"

She left so fast she nearly left an afterimage.

Sigrun stared after her for a long, long second, then burst into raucous laughter.

“Well, at least the kids will have something to talk about  _ now!”  _ she said loud enough for all the Silent World to hear, “True, not the love affair I’d been  _ hoping  _ they'd be talking about, but I suppose you take your entertainment where you can get it.”

Mikkel sighed like a long-suffering not-quite-parent-more-of-a-permanent-babysitter he could never escape being. 

“Speaking of,” Sigrun put aside her almost-empty bowl, “You think those two are any closer to realising they’re head over heels for each other?”

Tuuri, hidden rather ineffectively behind the tank door, didn’t manage to stifle her gasp in time. Ah, children. So obvious even when they were doing their best to be subtle. Mikkel sometimes wondered if they thought adults went blind at some point.

Sigrun was clearly aware of their little interloper as well, so Mikkel decided to follow her lead and ignore her. “Possibly. I did send them off together to gather supplies, but seeing as they took Reynir with them, I do not have a lot of faith in the effectiveness of that plan.”

Sigrun pouted at that. “Ah,  _ dritt _ . I really need to teach my Little Viking the importance of not missing your opportunities. If he remains oblivious any longer, Twigs is going to give up on him!”

“That sounds rather unlikely.”

“I don’t mean they’d stop being friends, I mean they’d  _ stay  _ just friends! Those two are totally made for each other, I’m not letting them just keep their heads shoved up their asses forever.”

“A stunning visual,” Mikkel dryly complimented her, “And what exactly are you planning to do? Shove their faces together and yell ‘now kiss!’?”

“I’m keeping it as a third last resort,” Sigrun nodded decisively, “If they don’t get it after  _ that,  _ I’m skipping to the last resort immediately.”

“Dare I ask what it is?” 

“Getting them drunk and shoving them in bed together,” Sigrun said bluntly. Over in the tank, Tuuri could be heard choking faintly.

Mikkel had to press the back of his hand against his mouth to muffle any sounds that might want to escape. Poor Tuuri, Sigrun was really piling it up. If they continued this, and knowing Sigrun, she just might, Tuuri was going to get as close to exploding as a human possibly could.

Mikkel finally took pity on her. “I’m sure they will figure it out on their own soon. In the quarantine, at least. There’s hardly going to be anything to do other than  _ talk.” _

“Uh, I’d say I have more faith in my Right Hand Warrior, but,” she made a disgruntled face, “When it comes to this, I really don’t. Seriously, you’d think a pretty boy like him would be more used to people liking him.”

That… Had occurred to Mikkel as well. Though he suspected Sigrun hadn’t quite meant it the way she actually said it, it was still true: Emil, quite simply, didn’t really know what to do with people who actually liked him, romantically or otherwise.

“Ugh, I’m going to lie down for a bit more,” Sigrun stretched and went back to the tank, “This might be my last chance to catch up on my sleep, I’m not missing it.”

“Good idea,” Mikkel said, “I’m going to do the dishes.”

Sigrun waved a dismissive hand and disappeared. Eventually, Tuuri sneaked out of her hiding spot and went about her actual duties.

Meanwhile, Mikkel had nothing better to do than wash the dishes and think. Whether or not she’d intended to, Sigrun had given him quite a bit of food for thought.

Mikkel knew he’d given the impression of disliking Emil, especially in the beginning. The boy was arrogant and prone to putting his foot in his mouth, and considering what Mikkel was used to retaliating with, the face-cancer scare had been pretty mild.

It did the trick, though. Emil had immediately fallen in line. When Mikkel bothered to give him orders, they were obeyed promptly and mostly without cheek. In fact, in the three months they’d been in the Silent World, Mikkel could not think of a single order Emil had outright disobeyed until today. He didn’t complain about Mikkel’s cooking, about decontamination, about having to dig the latrine, or about having to haul equipment when setting up the camp. If he did complain, he made sure it was only to himself and under his breath. 

A true military man, Mikkel would have thought, had it not been for the other side of the coin.

Sigrun had singled him out and immediately took him under her wing. Emil was happy and enthusiastic about that, clearly, but he also didn’t really know what to do about it. He was awkward and unsure at the first sign of genuine praise, even as he did his best to get more of it. 

Then, once Sigrun solidly placed her favor upon Emil and made a show of dismissing Mikkel, he’d expected the arrogant boy to gloat or hold it over him in revenge. Emil never did, though, just continued to treat him as a military superior, and eventually an amiable colleague. Any grudges he had, he let go of admirably.

It sent Mikkel’s instincts tingling, that a boy that had been in the military for barely two years knew exactly what to do around superiors who disliked him or didn’t think much of him, but did not know how to deal with those that did. That was the behavior of someone who was used to being disliked for far longer than just two years. That was the behavior of someone who very much  _ wanted  _ and  _ tried  _ to be liked, but did not have high hopes of actually achieving it. 

And if the picture Mikkel had painted was true, it would go a long way in explaining why Emil hadn’t caught on to the youngest Hotakainen’s advances. 

If he was so unused to people liking him, it was little wonder he didn’t know what to do with someone who was in love with him.

Perhaps Sigrun’s idea of of pushing their faces together had some merit after all. Unfortunately, as entertaining as that would be, Mikkel found himself wanting that relationship to actually work, so it would be better if he actually talked to Emil first.

And, if Tuuri’s behavior was any indication, he’d have some help on the other side as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's a real Danish folk song, and yes I could have linked a better source for it, but that is how I found out about it, and therefore it shall be how you find out about it.


	18. Chapter 18

Lalli fell back to his usual method of dealing with stupid people who played with their lives needlessly: ignoring them.

He could hear Emil filling Reynir in on the part of the conversation he missed because he was a stupid foreigner and didn’t know Suomi. Stupid Reynir even had the gall to be surprised that Onni would do something like that, even though that was the very first thing Onni had told them to do. Did he think Onni would forget? Or change his mind just because Lalli said so? Or was the stupid Icelander really that naive and sheltered that he had no idea what kind of danger Onni thought they were in? What kind of danger they most certainly  _ were  _ in?

Maybe he really was. Stupid, trusting Icelander, he was even worse than the stupid, ignorant Swede. Just how was Lalli supposed to keep them alive on his own?

When they came back to the camp, Tuuri came shooting out of the back of the tank with an excited look on her face, which was simply too much for Lalli to handle right now. Tuuri’s excited voice, high and loud and  _ grating _ , was a trial on a good day. Right now, Lalli had neither the patience nor energy for tolerating it, and he did not plan to.

“Lalli!” Tuuri called as she jogged over, “Oh my gods, you will not believe what I just-!”

“Mrrrr,” Lalli growled and slapped his hands over his ears, “I’m going scouting.”

“What?” Tuuri sounded taken aback, “But- Lalli!”

Lalli was already running.

The world seemed much more quiet when he was running. Like Tuulikki, the goddess of breeze and nature, the one his mother was named in honour of, cast her winds around him and blew all the noise away. As long as he was running, there was just him and the earth and the wind, and no Troll or Beast or spirit could catch him.

If he could, he would never stop running.

Eventually he reached the sea and was forced to stop. The cold water lapped at his ankles in gentle waves, cooling his skin even through the waterproof leather of his boots. It smelled  _ salty.  _ How weird. Lalli knew the ocean was a different kind of water than the lakes and rivers of Vellamo, and different from the unreal Dreamsea, but it was another thing to  _ feel  _ it with his own senses, to stand in it. Lalli took a deep breath, then kept taking it until his lungs felt like they would burst. 

For the moment, he could hear nothing but the gentle shifts of the ocean. A strange thought came to him then.

_ Is this what Tuonela is like? _

The quiet. The peace. The vast, endless Dreamsea and its drowning deep that kept all the souls of those who passed. If he failed, would this be waiting for him? The eternal sleep of the dead, safe under the guard of Tuoni and Tuonetar. Never again bothered by the fear of being ripped apart by Trolls, of the Kade lurking in mists of his dreams, never bothered by the tedium of noise and people and paperwork.

Never bothered by strange foreigners who couldn’t even control their own powers.

His lungs hurt. Lalli’s breath escaped him like a frightened rabbit, and his heart pounded in his chest hard enough to break through. Every next breath he took  _ hurt.  _ There was dread at his very core and it felt like it was eating away at him.

_ How could a single thought be so alluring and so frightening at the same time? _

Lalli’s breathing sped up.

_ That is exactly what will happen if I fail. _

When he died, the Swan would collect him and take him away, far away from the Earth. Lalli had made peace with that truth from a very young age, as all children of Saimaa were taught. Death was inescapable, and a far better fate than the alternative. Grandmother, especially, had made sure he knew what life and death entailed, and had warned him never to stray from the Bird’s Path upon his life’s end. 

But what happened when a foreigner died? Onni had once called their gods strange and cruel, where would they send their own dead? 

What would happen to Emil if Lalli failed to protect him?

Only one thing was for certain: Lalli would never see him again.

“No,” Lalli breathed out, mist clouding his fear, “ _ No.” _

“No what?”

Lalli whipped around, startled. Emil slowly put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Sorry, I thought you’d heard me coming,” he apologised, “Uh, you’ve been gone for a while, are you alright?”

“...I’m fine,” Lalli murmured, looking away. What was he even supposed to say?

He could see Emil biting his lip from the corner of his eye. The Swede looked like he wanted to say something but nothing was coming out. 

It reminded Lalli of the time when he was trying so hard to learn Finnish but was never sure of himself enough to get a proper word out. In the end, he just sighed in defeat and took Lalli’s hand.

“Uh, we’re supposed to be goin- Heavens, Lalli, you’re freezing!”

Lalli blinked. Oh, yeah, he supposed it was a bit too cold to be just standing ankle deep in the sea without moving. His legs felt stiff, and he couldn’t feel his fingers and toes. Well, he’d been worse, he’d warm up on the way ba-

Emil was hugging him.

Lalli’s brain froze along with his body. Emil’s arms were around him and his entire torso was pressed against Lalli’s. Broad palms rubbed his back in an effort to warm him up, and one settled on the nape of his neck.

Emil breathed, and his breath felt like the summer winds on Lalli’s skin.

Was he really doing it with perfectly pure intentions in mind? Was Lalli really the only one who felt it? The connection, the attraction? He’d thought- Well, he’d  _ hoped _ Emil felt it too, but no matter how he tried to show it, the Swede just looked either confused or embarrassed. Never giving Lalli an answer either way, even now that the answer could be understood.

Maybe Lalli was wrong. He usually was about other people. He’d thought Emil was different, but- No, he definitely was different. Emil was kind to everybody, even Beasts, because his heart really was so big and open. 

Lalli wasn’t special. He just fell under the category of ‘everybody’. 

He should give up hoping while he still could.

“Hey, you okay?” Emil took Lalli’s hands in his and rubbed his fingers gently, slowly massaging warmth and feeling back into them, “We should go back. We need to start walking now if we want to find proper shelter before nightfall.”

Lalli nodded but didn’t move. His body felt warm again from Emil’s ministrations, but he stayed rooted to the spot. Like he could pretend, just for a minute longer, that the real world was not waiting out there, wasn’t about to swallow him whole.

Emil blew out a gust of air that tickled Lalli’s face. It felt like standing in the warm wind. 

“You know,” for some reason, Emil’s tone was almost conversational, “You actually remind me of a cat very much.”

Lalli finally looked at him just so he could glare at the stupid Swede. Who was, for some stupid reason, smiling.

“Yep. So much that I sometimes have to remind myself that you probably wouldn’t appreciate being treated like a cat. And then it turns out maybe it would have been better if I’d been reminding myself a bit less. But like you said, I can be rather stupid sometimes.”

The stupid Swede was making less and less sense by the minute. Lalli was just getting really annoyed with him when, blushing pink to the roots of his hair, Emil took him by the shoulders and rubbed his cheek against Lalli’s. It wasn’t just a quick swipe, either. It was slow, firm  _ rub. _ The corner of his mouth brushed against Lalli’s, the friction of skin with a hint of stubble scratching him all the way to his ear.

Now, Lalli stood frozen to the spot for a reason that had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Lalli?” Emil asked plaintively, “Please say something.”

He couldn’t. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. His face was on fire. He knew he had to give an answer, now that he knew his feelings were reciprocated, but he couldn’t  _ think of anything to say! _

Emil was starting to look worried, and the worry was quickly morphing into panic. He stuttered, clearly trying to form some sort of apology, because  _ he’d clearly misunderstood what Lalli’s silence meant and- _

He had to do it. He wasn’t going to get another chance. 

So he surged forward, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to Emil’s.

It was bad. Their noses were bumping. Emil was startled, and hadn’t yet gathered his wits enough to kiss back. But then-

But then Emil’s hand cupped the back of Lalli’s neck, tilted his head, his lips parted slightly, and  _ he kissed him back. _

And then it was…  _ good. _

Lalli had never done something like that before, but he’d seen other people. Couples kissing before or after a mission. Other scouts bringing various people around the barracks and devouring each other’s mouths against the wall. The strange noises he sometimes heard from his neighbours. He knew what they all meant, but he’d never understood the appeal. He didn’t know why people bothered.

He thought he understood now.

Emil kissed him again, slow and chaste, just switching a bit to the left, but he wasn’t  _ stopping,  _ and Lalli wasn’t sure he ever wanted him to stop, because he was so warm and so  _ Emil,  _ and he  _ liked him back. _

Lalli wondered if he was feeling lightheaded from sheer euphoria or because he was running out of air.

Eventually, they had to break apart to breathe, puffing out misty clouds into each other's faces. Emil’s cheeks were as red as his parted lips, and his eyes-

His eyes were glittering pink, glowing bright enough that Lalli had trouble looking at them.

It was a sobering reminder of where they were, and the danger they were in.

“We have to go,” Lalli breathed out, “The others are waiting for us.”

“Ah, uh, yeah,” Emil fumbled a little, letting go of Lalli in the process. He did his best not to murr in discontent at that.

When Lalli finally moved his feet, he found out that part of the reason he hadn’t been able to move was because his feet had sunk into the sand. Just how long had he been out here? 

“Are you still cold?” Emil asked quietly.

Lalli wiggled his toes inside his boots, expecting them to be numb with cold, but they weren’t. In fact, he felt warmer than he did cocooned in a blanket next to the tank’s heater, even though he’d been standing in the cold wind and sea for over an hour.

He looked Emil in the eyes, the glittering pink glow fading back into luminous purple, and wondered if they had truly guessed the third gift of Emil’s goddess.

But… Emil was patting his shoulder and smiling at him. And he’d  _ kissed  _ him.

He could worry about the danger come nightfall. Right now, Lalli decided to let himself be happy. If only for a moment.

* * *

Sigrun did her very bestest not to grin like a loon when her Little Viking returned with their wayward scout, both of them blushing like a pair of virgin brides. 

There was no power on this Earth or beyond, though, that could stop her from elbowing Mikkel in the side and wiggling her eyebrows knowingly.

Mikkel, in his usual fashion, heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Alright, I admit, your plan worked.”

“Ha!”

“Though I do believe it was  _ my  _ idea to simply try talking to them first.”

“Doesn’t count if I did the talking!”

“I admit you’ve done it in a distinctly ‘you’ fashion.”

That was Mikkel-talk for saying she was awesome and her plan had gone  _ perfectly.  _

Mikkel’s idea was to sit Emil down and basically give him the sex talk, as if her Right Hand Warrior needed it. Mikkel was usually a smart guy, but sometimes he missed the point of the problem so hard she had to wonder. Sigrun put a stop to that fast, though, and dealt with it swiftly and effectively.

She called Emil over, squished his adorable little cheeks between her hands to make sure he was looking at her and not at his shoes, and told him loud and clear:

“You are head over heels for Lalli, and he's stupidly in love with you. So you are going to go after him and tell him that, or Thor help me, I’m going to lock you two in the tank until you sort your shit out. That’s an order, soldier.”

Emil had, predictably, spluttered and stammered and nearly melted into a puddle, but Sigrun had slapped him on the back heartily to discourage any protests. “Trust me, Emil. When have I lied to you or let you down, hm? Exactly, never. Now go and get your man!”

And Emil, the obedient little soldier he was, nodded in a daze and stumbled off vaguely in the direction he’d seen the scout go.

They’d returned rosy-cheeked about an hour later, shooting each other longing glances. 

Ah, young love. Sigrun fully expected to be thanked in the wedding speech. 

“Well, now that the soap opera part of this trip is over,” Mikkel said, eyeing Tuuri as she squealed and hugged her cousin with joy, “We need to get going soon.”

“Yes, yes,” Sigrun stretched her stiff limbs, “I’m feeling loads better now. What am I packing.”

“Nothing,” Mikkel was firm, “You will be our guard. Your job is to be on the lookout, ready to shoot any surprise attackers.”

Sigrun could just look at him blankly. Had he gone mad? “That’s the scout’s job.”

“Do you really think our scout is up to the task right now?” 

Sigrun looked at Lalli. Admittedly, he was mostly occupied by fending Tuuri off and sneaking glances at Emil, who was being harassed in a similar capacity by Reynir.

“You wanted them to have something to talk about,” Mikkel continued, “Now it seems they will be doing little else. I need someone with a clear head on their shoulders holding a gun. And I’m fairly certain some extra backpacks won’t impede their ability to gossip any.”

Sigrun made a face. When he put it like that… “Maybe I should have waited until we got to the outpost.”

“Perhaps,” Mikkel said in that infuriatingly mild tone, “But as things stand now, there will be no stopping them anytime soon,” he smirked, “Or at least until their ‘hormones and other gooey junk’ settle. The only thing you can do now is carry Kitty and be the lookout.”

He was far too smug about this. Sigrun almost suspected this was some nefarious plot to make her take it easy even though she was  _ fine  _ now, almost back to full speed, but even Mikkel couldn’t have masterminded something like this. 

Sigrun couldn’t entirely shake her doubts, though.

“Fine,” Sigrun conceded in the end, grabbed her rifle and the kitten, and slung them both over her shoulders, “Are the signal markers in the tank on?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ve done all we can for it. It’s time to start trekking,” Sigrun turned around and whistled sharply, “Alright team, lets move while the moving is good!”

The kids jumped back to attention like startled cats, but they did jump to attention. Emil and Reynir hurried to put their packs on, Tuuri secured her bag and Lalli slung his rifle over his shoulders.

Satisfied that everyone was prepared, Mikkel took up the handles of the wheelbarrow and heaved it up with their loot and their supplies like it weighted nothing, and calmly started walking in the direction of a ruined bridge.

Sigrun followed, as did the rest of the them. As they walked, she took a moment to feel proud of her team. Despite every possible worst case scenario happening to them on this mission, which had been shoddily organised in the first place, they’d fulfilled their mission, come out of it all in one piece, and without even losing the civilian! 

Real and proper Vikings, her kids were. The second they were back in the Known World, she was damn well drafting them into her unit. They were all coming home with her, and that was final.

She sneaked a smug peek at Mikkel. One way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahahahaha, finally, your prayers have been answered! But please do bear in mind the chapter count.
> 
> I wrote most of this while waiting for my Covid test results, and the first part kinda reflects my mood. And the second part reflects the relief when it came back negative. Sorry about the abrupt shift in tone, but eh, we got our baby himbos together. Finally. I'm the one writing this and I was getting impatient.
> 
> Also, I only realised how Lalli’s mini soliloquy could sound when I reread it without the Covid test looming over my. Don’t worry, Lalli’s not suicidal, just lovesick and sleep deprived. And a little ~~sexually~~ frustrated .


End file.
